W. Russ DeLoach

Russ DeLoach is NASA’s chief of Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA). He is responsible for policy and oversight of all SMA activities across the agency’s centers and programs. He has more than 35 years of experience implementing and managing all aspects of SMA in NASA’s Human Spaceflight programs, including the STS-26R return-to-flight post-Challenger for the Space Shuttle Program, the current International Space Station (ISS) and Commercial Crew Programs, as well as planning for the Artemis missions with Orion, Space Launch System, Gateway, Human Landing System, and systems required for lunar surface exploration.

DeLoach started his NASA career at the Kennedy Space Center as a Reliability engineer, assuring that Space Shuttle ground processing, launch and recovery were performed safely with risks understood and mitigated. DeLoach supported the early formulation and development of the ISS and oversaw the launch site processing and launch of ISS elements.

He took on increasing levels of responsibility at the center and was named Kennedy SMA director in 2014. After the Space Shuttle Program retirement, the agency transformed Kennedy to a multi-user spaceport. DeLoach developed transformative SMA approaches to enable public-private partnerships and maintain an acceptable risk posture for NASA while allowing flexibility and innovation for commercial interests. He then applied this experience to the Commercial Crew Program, developing innovative SMA approaches and solutions to the formulation, design, development and testing phases for two unique and complex Crew Transportation Systems. In 2019, he moved into the SMA director position at the Johnson Space Center where he gained further experience in on-orbit operations before moving to his current Agency role in 2021.

DeLoach holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Florida and is a distinguished graduate of the Army Material Command’s Logistics Management College Quality and Reliability Engineering program. He has a residence in Rockledge, Florida with his wife, Janice.