Janet Kavandi

6.8.21
Dr. Janet L. Kavandi serves as the President of SNC subsidiary Sierra Space in Louisville, Colorado. There, she is
responsible for the company’s space programs, including the Dream Chaser® spaceplane, which is under contract to
deliver supplies to the International Space Station beginning in 2021. Dream Chaser is a winged vehicle and the only
resupply vehicle capable of landing on a commercial runway.
Prior to her current position, Dr. Kavandi served as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s John H.
Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. In this position, she was responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the
activities required for cutting-edge research on aerospace and aeronautical propulsion, power, and communication
technologies.
Prior to accepting the Director position, Dr. Kavandi served as Glenn’s Deputy Director. Before her time at Glenn, Dr.
Kavandi worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where she served as the Director of Flight Crew
Operations. In this role, she was responsible for the Astronaut Corps and Aircraft Operations at Ellington Field. Dr. Kavandi
also served as the Deputy Director of the Health and Human Performance Directorate, where she was responsible for
the NASA flight surgeons and human research investigations on the International Space Station (ISS).
Dr. Kavandi was selected as a NASA astronaut in December 1994 as a member of the fifteenth class of U.S. astronauts.
During her time in the Astronaut Office, she supported International Space Station payload integration, capsule
communications, robotics and served as Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office. She is a veteran of three space flights, serving as a mission specialist on STS-91 in 1998, STS-99 in 2000 and STS-104 in 2001. Dr. Kavandi has logged more than 33 days in space, traveling more than 13.1 million miles in 535 Earth orbits. Dr. Kavandi recently received the Women in Aerospace Lifetime Achievement Award.