Elkin Norena, resident manager for NASA's SLS program

Elkin Norena has helped launch more than a dozen space shuttle missions that built the International Space Station, performed a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, and carried out experiments that improved life on Earth. He now serves as manager of the Resident Management Office for the Space Launch System at Kennedy Space Center, supporting launches of SLS and the Orion spacecraft with its international quartet of astronauts on the Artemis II mission to fly by the Moon and return home.

As resident manager, Norena provides onsite SLS support for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team, which prepares, stacks, tests, and launches SLS and Orion. He also acts as the SLS Program’s eyes and ears at Kennedy, maintaining communications back to the program office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

A Colombia native, Norena traces his career to a childhood moment in New Jersey when he watched a space shuttle launch in class and decided he wanted to be part of space exploration.

Colombia, Huntsville, Alabama

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