01/11/2024
Our AIAA Tucson Section member, John Kelly was the guest speak at the Arizona Space Business Roundtable, UA today. Great job, John!
About John Kelly:
John Kelly of NASA’s Flight Opportunities program is part of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. Flight Opportunities rapidly demonstrates promising technologies for space exploration, discovery, and the expansion of space commerce through suborbital and hosted orbital testing with industry flight providers.
The program matures capabilities needed for NASA missions and commercial applications while strategically investing in the growth of the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry. These flight tests take technologies from ground-based laboratories into relevant environments to increase technology readiness and validate feasibility while reducing the costs and technical risks of future missions. Awards and agreements for flight test are open to researchers from industry, academia, non-profit research institutes, and government organizations. These investments help advance technologies of interest to NASA while supporting commercial flight providers and expanding space-based applications and commerce.
John helped establish the Flight Opportunities program in 2010-11 and was program manager until Feb 2013, when he left for a detail assignment at Mojave Air and Space Port. John resumed management of the program in Nov 2018 and managed it through Oct 2022. He is currently a senior advisor to the program. He lives in Tucson and is active in the local chapters of AIAA and PMI.
