Shuttle Inquiry Official to Head Marshall Center
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WASHINGTON — James R. Thompson will return to the Marshall Space Flight Center to take charge of the facility, which was cited for problems in the space shuttle Challenger disaster, NASA announced Tuesday.
Thompson, an engineer, worked at Marshall for 23 years before leaving in 1983 to take a scientific post at Princeton University.
Thompson, 50, was vice chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration task force that investigated the Jan. 28 shuttle explosion.
He replaces William R. Lucas as head of the Huntsville, Ala., center that supervises shuttle rockets.
Retired Last Month
Lucas had headed Marshall since 1974 and retired last month in a shake-up of key space officials.
Under Lucas’ leadership, Marshall engineers supervised Morton Thiokol Inc.’s development of the solid-fuel booster rockets, which the Rogers Commission blamed in its report on the Challenger explosion.
Thompson will begin work as director of the Marshall center in late September, NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said.
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