Learning Center Our Enshrinees

Eugene Kranz

• Assigned to Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base, flying the F-100 Super Sabre, later received orders to the 58th Fighter-Bomber Wing, Osan, Korea, flying F-86 Sabres.
• Responded to a magazine ad indicating that NASA was seeking engineers for Project Mercury. Assigned as the Procedures Officer for all early Mercury missions.
• Named the Chief of the Flight Control Division, but supporting only the odd-numbered Apollo missions- including the Apollo 11 mission.
• After the oxygen tank explosion on the Apollo 13 module, Kranz and his mission control team led the urgent and complex planning and procedures effort that led to the safe recovery of its crew.
• In 1974, Gene was promoted to Deputy Director of NASA Mission Operations and became its Director in 1983.