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Portrait of Chuck Tatro

Charles “Chuck” Tatro

Senior Mission Manager, Launch Services Program

Charles (Chuck) Tatro is a senior mission manager with the NASA’s Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He is responsible for commercial launch vehicle advisory to Artemis III Human Landing System (HLS) and Gateway Deep Space Logistics (DSL), as well as the mission manager for TRACERS and other NASA missions, including: Pressurized Lunar Rover, ESPRIT, and Large Cryo Fluid Management Demo.

Experience

Tatro was Launch Site Integration Branch chief from 2015 to 2019. He was responsible for supervising personnel and managing facilities and spacecraft processing activities at Kennedy and Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California.

Before becoming a Branch Chief, he served as mission manager for: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), MAVEN, LRO-LCROSS, GRACE-Follow-On, InSight, and Mars 2020 missions.

He also served as Launch Site Integration Manager for Mars’98 Orbiter and Lander, Stardust, Kodiak Star, Spitzer (SIRTF), Pluto-New Horizons, and assisted in launch site planning and processing for the Deep Impact and Dawn missions. Before coming to the unmanned rocket world, he was lead engineer for space shuttle orbiter thermal protection systems.

Tatro began his NASA career at Glenn (Lewis) Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1986. Prior to joining NASA, he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Test Center.

Education

Tatro has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of California, San Diego, and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Arizona and engineering management from the University of Central Florida.

Biography last updated February 2023