Carla Rekucki
Mission Manager
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Carla Rekucki is a mission manager within the Mission Management and Integration Office for the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Her role as a mission manager is to facilitate collaboration between NASA and the commercial providers, oversee mission operations planning, and ensure the requirements and processes necessary to conduct a successful flight are in place and ready prior to launch and throughout the mission.
Experience
Prior to her role with CCP, she worked as a lead NASA test director within the Test, Launch and Recovery Management Branch of NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) Program at Kennedy, which successfully tested and launched Artemis I. Most recently, Rekucki served as the assistant NASA recovery director for Artemis I, which involved safely and successfully recovering the Orion capsule utilizing a United States Navy Landing Platform Dock (LPD) ship in the Pacific Ocean. She was responsible for the leadership, planning, and execution of various milestones, integrated tests, and mission-critical operations for both launch and recovery for Artemis I and the planning for future Artemis missions.
Prior to joining NASA, Rekucki started her career at Kennedy in 2004 with United Space Alliance during the Space Shuttle Program, where she worked in flight controls and hydraulic systems. She served as the lead solid rocket booster hydraulic system engineer supporting the Space Shuttle Program and Ares 1-X for the Constellation Program, leading and integrating systems tests, problem resolution, and operations through launch countdown.
After the shuttle program, she transitioned to Safety and Mission Assurance as a systems safety engineer supporting NASA’s EGS program and many of the ground system designs that NASA utilizes today to support ground operations processing.
Awards
Rekucki has received many performance and group achievement awards throughout her years at Kennedy, as well as various others, such as NASA’s Space Flight Awareness Team Award, Space Flight Awareness Launch Honoree Award, and the NASA Ares 1-X Mission Manager Award.
Education
Rekucki graduated from Florida Institute of Technology in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science in space science.
Personal
Rekucki currently resides in Cocoa Beach, Florida, with her husband and two sons.
Biography last updated February 2023