NASA appoints Joseph Pelfrey as deputy director of Marshall Space Flight Center

Joseph Pelfrey has been appointed deputy director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

In his new role, the former manager of MSFC’s Human Exploration Development and Operations office will assist in leading the agency’s nearly 7,000 onsite and near-site civil service and contractor employees and oversee its annual budget of approximately $4 billion. He will also help guide Marshall’s broad portfolio of human spaceflight, science and technology development efforts, which touches nearly every mission NASA pursues.

“It’s my pleasure to welcome to Marshall’s executive leadership team such a smart, caring, detail-oriented engineer and manager,” said MSFC director Jody Singer. “I’ve been privileged to work with Joseph Pelfrey for many years at Marshall, and he’s an inexhaustible source of insight and invention – both critical to executing NASA’s mission every time we fly and every day we come to work.”

Throughout his NASA career, Pelfry has served in multiple technical leadership positions at MSFC and began his career as an industry partner, supporting development of space station payload hardware.

He joined Marshall in 2004 as an aerospace engineer in the Science and Mission Systems office and went on to serve in various leadership roles within the ISS Program, leading the development, integration, and operations of multiple payload facilities and science experiments.

In 2008, Pelfrey joined Marshall’s Engineering Directorate to serve as the design integration lead for the Ares I Upper Stage, the rocket that would inform the development of NASA’s Space Launch System; and in 2011, he was named engineering task manager for the Space Launch System’s Spacecraft/Payload Integration and Evolution Office. Subsequently, he became manager of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project at MSFC.

In 2012, Pelfrey was appointed deputy manager and then manager of the Exploration and Space Transportation Development office in MSFC’s Flight Programs and Partnerships office.

In 2016, he was appointed to the senior executive service post of associate director for operations in Marshall’s Engineering Directorate. The Senior Executive Service is the personnel system covering most top managerial, supervisory and policy positions in the executive branch of the federal government.

Pelfrey received a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Auburn University in 2000 and lives in Huntsville with his wife Nicole and daughter Adelyn.