Sean
O’Keefe, who became NASA’s new administrator last month
following U.S. Senate confirmation, will hold a news
conference at 2 p.m. PST, Wednesday, Jan. 30, during his
first visit to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif.
O’Keefe is visiting NASA centers around the country and
developing plans for the space agency’s future. JPL is the
first stop on his tour of three NASA centers in California.
During his visit to JPL, O’Keefe will meet with JPL
Director Dr. Charles Elachi, California Institute of
Technology President Dr. David Baltimore and JPL employees.
O’Keefe will be briefed on various JPL missions, including
those to explore Mars and search for planets beyond our
solar system. He will also tour a spacecraft design center
and JPL’s mission control, where ground engineers
communicate with spacecraft currently traveling through the
solar system.
Before joining NASA, O’Keefe was deputy director of the
White House Office of Management and Budget. He previously
served as secretary of the Navy; comptroller and chief
financial officer of the Department of Defense; a professor
of business and government policy at Syracuse University in
New York; dean of the graduate school at Pennsylvania State
University; and a staff member for the Senate Appropriations
Committee. Additional biographical information is available
online at http://www.nasa.gov/bios/okeefe.html .
News media representatives who would like to attend the
news conference at JPL should contact Guy Webster in advance
at 818-354-6278 for information about security clearance.
JPL, managed for NASA by Caltech, is NASA’s lead center
for robotic space exploration.
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Media Contact: Guy Webster, JPL Media Relations, 818-354-6278
