WASHINGTON — Steve Cash left Marshall Space Flight Center in 2016 as head of its safety directorate. On Monday he returns as the person running it, ending 13 months in which the Alabama center has had only an acting director.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman named Cash director on Friday, effective Oct. 19. The Huntsville center helps develop the Space Launch System, the rocket for Artemis III now being stacked in Florida, and manages the Human Landing System Program. Cash replaces Rae Ann Meyer, acting director since September 2025, who goes back to being deputy director.
Cash is a returnee, not an outsider. He began at Marshall in 1982, managed its Space Shuttle Propulsion Office through the final shuttle missions, and directed its Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate from 2011 until he retired in 2016. Industry work followed, including a stint as vice president for advanced space systems at Axient. He now oversees what NASA counts as more than 5,000 civil service and contractor employees.
NASA’s pitch is that hands-on experience is the qualification. Isaacman called Cash “a Marshall legend,” according to NASA’s announcement. Amit Kshatriya, the associate administrator and chief engineer, said Cash understands that “the jewel of Marshall is its workforce.”
The announcement also describes nuclear power and propulsion as an area “expected to grow” at Marshall as NASA works toward the first crewed Mars missions. NASA’s release on the space nuclear memorandum it signed with the Energy Department on Oct. 8 does not mention Marshall, and neither document says how the center’s share of that work will be set.
What the announcement leaves out is why the job stayed acting for 13 months, or what Cash plans to change. His only quoted words are about being “back home.” Kshatriya’s engineering office is also turning over, with astronaut Christina Koch as acting deputy chief engineer from Nov. 1.
Isaacman and Kshatriya are due at Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 23 to update plans for returning astronauts to the Moon by 2028, according to a NASA advisory. Whether Cash will arrive with a view on the lander work Marshall manages is something the release leaves entirely open.
