NASA spacecraft center names its first black and female deputy director

Farida Dawkins August 13, 2018
Vanessa Wyche...composite

On Wednesday NASA stated that the Johnson Space Center appointed Vanessa Wyche as the newest deputy director.  She is the first black female to be selected for the position.

In her new role, Wyche will be responsible for overseeing the center of human flight research. The JSC has 10,000 civil and contract employees making it one of NASA’s biggest facilities.

Wyche, 54, began her illustrious 30-year career at NASA as a project engineer for its space life sciences department.

She’s gone on to garner the titles of the director of human exploration development support, the assistant director of the Johnson Center, and most recently the director of the center’s Exploration Integration and Science Directorate.

“I am incredibly humbled to take on this role at JSC, and also excited to assist Mark with leading the home of human spaceflight, I look forward to working with the talented employees at JSC as we work toward our mission of taking humans farther into the solar system,” Wyche commented.

Mark Geyer the center’s director said, “She is respected at NASA, has built agency-wide relationships throughout her nearly three-decade career and will serve JSC well as we continue to lead human space exploration in Houston.”

JSC, otherwise known as the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center conducts human flight training, flight control and research.  Nicknamed “Houston” in 1967, the facility is mostly known as the mission control for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo–Soyuz and Space Shuttle program flights.

Last Edited by:Nduta Waweru Updated: August 13, 2018

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