Cathy Richardson

Cathy Richardson has over 30 years of experience in program/project management and space flight instrument development at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Cathy was selected to serve as the Director of the Flight Projects Directorate (FPD) in January 2024 after nearly a year serving in an acting capacity. She had also previously supported the Directorate as its Deputy Director and Deputy Director of Planning and Business Management. Cathy’s focus is developing FPD as a flight project management institution to support GSFC and NASA Headquarters. This includes building FPD’s project and organizational leaders for consistent successful execution of its projects and programs.

As Director, she oversees 12 divisions and offices with a diverse portfolio of programs and projects spanning all NASA science divisions, the Space Technology Mission Directorate, Space Communication and Navigation, and GSFC’s significant NASA-National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration partnerships. She leads the Directorate’s technical, process, and portfolio overview functions as well as interfaces with GSFC management, NASA Headquarters, and interagency and commercial partners. She is dedicated to developing and maintaining tools and best practices for all project management disciplines, including implementation of FPD’s budget, strategic workforce management, organizational and employee development, and program and project performance assessments.

Prior to joining FPD, Cathy served as the Program Manager of NASA’s Earth Systematic Missions Program, responsible for the management and coordination of all systematic Earth observation missions and the Reimbursable Projects Program for U.S. partner agency funded projects. In this role, she also served as GSFC’s Associate Director for the Earth Science Projects Division supervising numerous project managers. She provided oversight for multiple projects in all phases of formulation and implementation, including mission studies and operations. She coordinated a number of international and interagency partnerships and collaborated with other NASA field centers. She developed a number of critical tools to provide programmatic assessments of technical, cost, and schedule performance that allowed in-depth forecasting and trending of project performance. She also focused on assessing cross cutting technical issues and risks across Earth science projects and provided regular reporting to both GSFC and NASA management.

She has in-depth experience with GSFC in-house instrument development, having served as the Instrument Project Manager of the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System, GSFC’s largest and most complex instrument at that time, from its Preliminary Design Review through environmental testing. Cathy also served as the in-house Instrument Manager for the Thermal Infrared Sensor, leading its development from inception to delivery, meeting all technical and programmatic commitments. Additionally, Cathy was the Instrument Manager for two contracted instruments, the Space Environment In-Situ Suite and the Solar Imaging Suite, for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) series during its formulation phase; and for two contracted instrument series, the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder instruments and the Advanced High Resolution Radiometers, for the Polar Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite project. She also previously served as the Chief of the Instrument Management and Systems Office within GSFC’s Engineering and Technology Directorate.

Cathy started her career as a structural analyst for multiple space flight projects supporting GSFC, the Naval Research Lab, and Johns Hopkins University. She holds a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Maryland and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.