John Muratore

John Muratore

John F. Muratore is an American engineer, former professor of Aviation Systems at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Tullahoma, TN and current Director of Launch Operations for Launch Complex 39A at SpaceX at Cape Canaveral Fl. He is a former NASA engineer and Program Manager, well known in the aerospace circles for his gregarious and unconventional style.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1979 from Yale University and a Master of Science in Computer Science in 1988 from the University of Houston–Clear Lake. He served in the US Air Force on the Air Force Space Shuttle Program at Vandenberg AFB, CA from 1979 until 1983 where he spent most of his time on assignment at Kennedy Space Center working on the Launch Sequence software. After his tour in the Air Force, Mr. Muratore joined NASA JSC after which he held progressively responsible leadership positions including Chief, Reconfiguration Management Division, Space Shuttle Flight Director, and Chief, Control Center Systems Division in the Mission Operations Directorate; and Associate Director and Deputy Manager, Advance Development Office and Assistant to the Director, Engineering within the Engineering Directorate.

From 1996 to 2003, he was the Program Manager of the X-38 program, an unmanned demonstrator which performed a series of successful demonstration flights at Edwards Air Force Base. He gathered a team of young, relatively inexperienced but highly motivated engineers to try to apply the 'faster, better, cheaper' method advocated by Daniel Goldin to human spaceflight, in order for NASA to obtain at affordable cost a Crew Return Vehicle.

In 2003, following the cancellation of the X-38 program due to the International Space Station program's financial woes, Mr. Muratore was named Manager, Space Shuttle Systems Engineering and Integration Office, Space Shuttle Program. Most recently he has served as Lead Engineer for the Space Shuttle Program.

In April 2006, following his technical opposition to Michael Griffin's decisions regarding the Shuttle return to flight, he was reassigned as Senior Systems Engineer supporting the Shuttle/Station Engineering Office in the Engineering Directorate.

...
Wikipedia