Manager Added to Space Project Former Nasa Official on Team

By Daily News

Leonard Nicholson, a former NASA official and former International Space Station executive for Boeing, has been named deputy program manager for Northrop Grumman and Boeing’s Crew Exploration Vehicle.

“Leonard’s broad operational experience in the U.S. space program, from Apollo to the space shuttle and International Space Station programs, reinforces our team’s ability to help NASA design and build an innovative, yet affordable CEV at the lowest possible risk,” said Doug Young, vice president of space systems for Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Systems sector and program manager for the Northrop Grumman-Boeing CEV team.

Northrop Grumman and Boeing are working under a $28 million NASA contract to perform studies for a spacecraft to replace the space shuttle and carry astronauts to the moon and Mars.

NASA plans to award a contract to design and build the CEV in spring 2006.

Nicholson, a Boeing employee, will be responsible for coordinating the team’s activities required to implement the overall CEV program.

Keith Reiley, who had been acting deputy program manager, will devote full attention to managing the spacecraft design activity and will serve as the lead for the first-phase contract effort.

Nicholson retired from NASA in 2000 and joined Boeing as a special assistant to the company’s International Space Station program manager. In 2002, he was named International Space Station deputy program manager.