Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, September 19, 2005 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Gene Kranz

"Mission Operations"

ABSTRACT -- From the early days of the Mercury program through the Shuttle mission that first serviced the Hubble Space Telescope, Gene Kranz led the definition, execution, and continual refinement of flight operations for America's manned space program. This lecture will present that operations paradigm by describing the organization, processes, facilities, and people of NASA's mission control. It will discuss how these elements interacted to successfully handle routine operations as well as unforeseen anomalies such as those experienced during the Apollo 13 mission.

SPEAKER -- Mr. Kranz received his B.S. degree in aeronautical engineering from Parks College of St. Louis University in 1954. Afterwards, he was commissioned in the U.S. Air Force, and flew high performance jet fighter aircraft. In 1958, he worked as a flight-test engineer for McDonnell Aircraft, developing the Quail Decoy Missile.

Mr. Kranz joined the NASA Space Task Group at Langley, Virginia, in 1960, and was assigned the position of assistant flight director for Project Mercury. He assumed flight director duties for all Project Gemini Missions, and was branch chief for Flight Control Operations. He was selected as division chief for Flight Control in 1968, and continued his duties as a flight director for the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing before taking over the leadership of the Apollo 13 "Tiger Team." He was discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a Captain in 1972. He contributed his expertise to a number of other NASA missions during his career, including the Skylab Program and was then named deputy director of Flight Operations for NASA, which gave him the responsibility for space flight planning, training and mission operations, aircraft operations, and flight crew operations. In 1983, he was assigned the post of director of Mission Operations, and given the responsibility for all aspects of mission design, development, maintenance, and operations of all related mission facilities, as well as the preparation of the Space Shuttle flight software.

Mr. Kranz has received many awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he received from President Nixon for the Apollo 13 mission. After retirement from NASA in 1994. Mr. Kranz served as a flight engineer on a B-17 "Flying Fortress", constructed an aerobatic bi-plane and in April 2000 published a memoir about his experiences in the space program, "Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond." His book, a New York Times Bestseller, has been selected by the History Channel as the basis for a documentary on Mission Control.