Former Astronaut Bowersox Joins SpaceX as Vice President of Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance
Hawthorne, CA – (June 16, 2009) – Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) announces Ken Bowersox as vice president of the newly formed Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance Department. He will be co-located in Houston, Texas, and SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Bowersox joins SpaceX with over 19 years of experience at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Selected to the astronaut corps in 1987, he has flown five times on NASA’s Space Shuttle, serving as pilot, commander and mission specialist, and once on a Russian Soyuz, where he served as the flight engineer during descent. During his five orbital missions, Bowersox has logged over 211 days in space, including five and a half months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), where he was the mission commander of the 6th expedition. He was also a crew member for the first two Hubble Space Telescope repair flights and two United States Microgravity Laboratory flights.
Subsequent to his mission aboard the ISS, Bowersox served as the director of the Johnson Space Center’s Flight Crew Operations Directorate, where he was responsible for the NASA Astronaut Office and all aircraft operations at the Johnson Space Center. Most recently, Bowersox has been working as an independent aerospace consultant, serving on the NASA standing review boards for Space Shuttle, ISS, Constellation, Orion and the Constellation Suit System.
“Ken Bowersox is a critical asset to the SpaceX team, as we prepare for crewed missions aboard our Dragon spacecraft,” said Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of SpaceX. “His experience in the U.S. astronaut corps, and aboard the International Space Station, will be invaluable in shaping the future of commercial manned spaceflight.”
About SpaceX
SpaceX is revolutionizing access to space with a family of launch vehicles and spacecraft designed to increase the reliability and reduce the cost of both manned and unmanned space transportation, ultimately by a factor of ten. As a winner of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition (COTS), SpaceX will conduct three flights of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft, culminating in Dragon berthing with the ISS. In addition, NASA recently selected the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for the ISS Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract award.
The contract includes 12 flights between 2010 and 2015 and represents a guaranteed minimum of 20,000 kg to be carried to the ISS.
Founded in 2002, the SpaceX team now numbers more than 700 full time employees, located primarily in Hawthorne, California, with additional locations, including SpaceX’s Texas Test Facility in McGregor near Waco; offices in Washington DC; and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and the Marshall Islands in the Central Pacific.
