Columbia reconstruction chief to return to KSC

The NASA manager who directed a reconstruction effort key to pinpointing the cause of the 2003 Columbia accident is returning to Kennedy Space Center to head up a new 800-person NASA engineering directorate.

Stephen Altemus will serve as the director of the new division, which is being created to centralize KSC's engineering activities into one organization that will have an independent line of authority and ensure the highest quality of engineering rigor at the center.

The new directorate is to be fully staffed by Oct. 1.

"I'm extremely excited to have a person with Steve's strong technical background and exceptional commitment to engineering excellence join our management team," KSC Director James Kennedy said in a statement.

Altemus left KSC in January 2005 to serve as acting and then deputy director of engineering at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

In those posts, he was responsible for providing engineering design, development and testing, as well as technical expertise in support the shuttle and International Space Station programs as well as advanced spacecraft for human expeditions to the moon, Mars and other celestial destinations.

Altemus had previously served as chief of the shuttle launch and landing division at KSC, where he managed a team of engineers and technical experts in the specialized fields of shuttle ground processing and launch and landing operations.

In the wake of the Columbia accident, Altemus served as the Columbia reconstruction director for the shuttle program at KSC.

In that capacity, he managed a team of 400 engineers responsible for cataloging, identifying and re-assembling more than 85,000 pieces of shuttle debris collected from East Texas and Louisiana in the aftermath of the reentry accident.

Altemus holds a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University and a master's degree in engineering from the University of Central Florida.

He and his wife, Brunella, have two children: Samantha and Joseph.