NASA Langley Reorganizes to Meet Exploration Challenges

Roy D. Bridges Jr., Director of NASA’s Langley Research Center, and Lesa B. Roe, Deputy Director, today announced reorganization plans to better position the Center to implement the Vision for Space Exploration and meet aerospace exploration challenges of the future.

“Langley Research Center will reinvigorate and expand our space and science capabilities to advance the space exploration vision,” said Bridges. “We will also refocus critical elements of our aeronautical and atmospheric science heritage to revolutionize atmospheric flight and research.”

Transformation activities are in process across NASA to ensure that the agency takes an integrated approach to science requirements, to management and to the implementation of systems development and exploration missions.

“This is not about moving the boxes of leadership,” said Bridges. “It’s about the way we work together as a Center and as an Agency.”

Roe, who served as chair of the Reorganization Kick Start Team, emphasized that the new structure positions the Center to forge strong, cooperative relationships between Langley’s project management and technical capabilities.

“We have excellent people – people who are innovative, creative and passionate about their research,” said Roe. “This reorganization will allow the Center to be more customer oriented, more flexible and agile, and more risk tolerant.”

A strong focus of the reorganization is to provide clear points of entry for customers. To do this, new research, science and technology product units are being created that will focus on new growth opportunities for the Center’s capabilities.

Changes at NASA Langley and agency-wide represent the next step in applying the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Implementation of U.S. Space Exploration Policy and reflect NASA’s ongoing efforts to apply the findings and recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.

Langley Research Center played a critical role in the Nation’s entry into the space era in the 1960s. The Center’s new structure will position Langley to play an equally vital role in the new space exploration initiative.