McDonnell Douglas Unit Gets New Chief : Aerospace: Larry Morata is named vice president and general manager of the Space Station Division. The firm has won $3.5 billion in work from NASA.

McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. said Monday that Larry P. Morata has been appointed to the company’s top post in the Space Station Freedom project.

Morata becomes vice president and general manager of the Space Station Division for the aerospace company. He succeeds Robert Thompson, who will become a vice president in charge of special projects at the company’s Houston operation.

The company, a subsidiary of McDonnell Douglas Corp. in St. Louis, has won more than $3.5 billion in space station work from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA plans to deploy the $30-billion space station in the second half of the decade.

Morata, a Coto de Caza resident, was appointed vice president and deputy general manager of the space station unit last year. He was named Hispanic Engineer of the Year in 1990 by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference.

Morata started work at McDonnell Douglas 32 years ago as an electrical engineer on the Delta rocket program. He has also worked on projects related to the Saturn, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs.

R. Gale Schluter will succeed Morata as vice president and deputy general manager of the Space Station Division. He comes to McDonnell Douglas Space Systems from McDonnell Douglas Electronics Systems Co., where he was vice president and general manager of the Surveillance and Electronic Systems Division.

Space Systems employs about 2,350 people in Houston and Huntington Beach on the space station program. About 1,400 space station workers are in Orange County.