NASA Chooses Indian American Amit Kshatriya to Head its Most Ambitious Space Exploration Program
- A graduate of the California Institute of Technology, he will head the newly created Moon to Mars Program Office.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has chosen Indian American to head its most ambitious space exploration mission ever. It has appointed Amit Kshatriya as the agency’s first head of the new Moon to Mars Program Office.
“The Moon to Mars Program Office will help prepare NASA to carry out our bold missions to the Moon and land the first humans on Mars,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an announcement on March 30.
“The golden age of exploration is happening right now, and this new office will help ensure that NASA successfully establishes a long-term lunar presence needed to prepare for humanity’s next giant leap to the Red Planet,” he added.
According to NASA, Kshatriya, who graduated from the California Institute of Technology, previously served as acting deputy associate administrator for Common Exploration Systems Development, providing leadership and integration across several of the programs that now fall within the new office.
The NASA profile of Kshatriya, a software and robotics engineer, says, “he began his career in the space program in 2003, working as a software engineer, robotics engineer, and spacecraft operator primarily focused on the robotic assembly of the International Space Station. From 2014 to 2017, he served as a space station flight director, where he led global teams in the operations and execution of the space station during all phases of flight. From 2017 to 2021, he became deputy, and then acting manager, of the ISS Vehicle Office, where he was responsible for sustaining engineering, logistics, and hardware program management. In 2021, he was assigned to NASA Headquarters in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate as an assistant deputy associate administrator, where he was an integral part of the team that returned a spacecraft designed to carry humans to the Moon during the Artemis I mission.”
Kshatriya has been awarded the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for actions as the lead flight director for the 50th expedition to the space station, as well as the Silver Snoopy — an award that astronauts bestow for outstanding performance contributing to flight safety — for his actions as lead robotics officer for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Dragon demonstration mission to the orbiting laboratory.
Kshatriya has been decorated with the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for actions as the lead flight director for the 50th expedition to the space station, as well as the Silver Snoopy — an award that astronauts bestow for outstanding performance contributing to flight safety — for his actions as lead robotics officer for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Dragon demonstration mission to the orbiting laboratory.
Kshatriya, the son of first-generation Indian immigrants, is married and the couple have three children.