Janet Kavandi, a 25-year veteran of NASA and former director of the agency’s Glenn Research Center, has been appointed senior vice president for the space systems business area at Sierra Nevada Corp.
She will be responsible for overseeing the area’s space technologies and spacecraft, space exploration systems and propulsion and environmental systems units, SNC said Monday.
“I look forward to working collaboratively with the SNC team and our partners to achieve revolutionary goals in commercial spaceflight,” said Kavandi.
The former astronaut has been credited with expanding NASA Glenn’s role in the Artemis Program, which includes work on the Gateway power and propulsion element and Orion spacecraft testing efforts.
Kavandi joined the agency in 1994 and logged more than 33 days and 13.1M miles in space during three space shuttle missions that occurred from 1998 to 2001.
NASA inducted her into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in April.