Michael L. Coats has been named director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
A former astronaut, Coats is currently vice president of Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Jefferson County. He will become the ninth person to serve as director of the 44- year-old center.
“Mike Coats brings a perfect blend of experience to his new role as the head of the nation’s primary center for human spaceflight development and operations,” said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. “As a former pilot and astronaut, and a longtime aerospace-industry executive, he knows what our next generation of manned spacecraft must be able to do, and he knows what it takes to produce them.”
Coats joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1978. Between 1984 and 1991, he took three space-shuttle flights.
Before joining NASA, he was a U.S. Navy aviator. He retired from NASA and the Navy in August 1991.
Coats worked at Loral Space Information Systems before joining Lockheed Martin in 1996.
At the Johnson Space Center, Coats will oversee a workforce of about 10,000 people. He will retire the space-shuttle program and change the center over to the new Constellation program.
“We will embrace the challenge of the new program that will take us first to the moon and then on to Mars,” Coats said.
Staff writer Andy Vuong can be reached at 303-820-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com.
