Maria Lopez-Tellado
Flight Systems Program Manager
ELV and Payload Carriers Program Office

Maria Lopez-Tellado is a member of the Payload Carriers & Support Program Office at KSC as a Flight Systems Program Manager. She is responsible for developing program requirements and provides resources for the development, activation, validation, operation, and maintenance of Payload Carriers facility systems and processes to enable efficient launch site processing of Payload Carriers payloads.

Maria came to NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. in 1987 to join the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology in the Propulsion, Power and Energy Division as an Advanced Technology Program Manager. She was responsible for developing program requirements and providing resources, for the development of critical capabilities to enable future space missions, in the areas of planetary solar-based power and cryogenic fluid management.

In 1992, she transferred to the Engineering Development Directorate at KSC as the budget lead for the CORE Electronics System Project; CORE was the largest development project in work at KSC at the time. It was to provide a generic Control and Monitoring System with unique interfaces for Space Station and Shuttle Programs. Later she became the budget integrator for the overall Directorate responsible for analyzing and planning for long-range resources requirements, developing Directorate workforce and resources allocations, program planning and control, performance management and processes. She worked for the Naval Ordnance Station in Maryland for 7 years as a solid propellant developer engineer before joining NASA.

Maria was born in Cuba and grew up in Spain and Puerto Rico. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1979 with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering; while working for the NAVY, she continued her education and obtained a Masters degree in Engineering Administration in 1984 from George Washington University.

She and her husband, Joseph Tellado, reside in Cocoa Beach, Florida, with their two daughters, Michelle and Nicole.

May 2002