You’re viewing a past speaker’s bio. They are not currently scheduled for the upcoming program.
Michael Haddad began his career at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in 1982 as a mechanical and fluids engineer. Over the next three decades, he played a critical role in assembling, modifying, integrating, servicing, and testing flight hardware for both domestic and international payloads. His work required close coordination with NASA-wide organizations, private industry, educational institutions, and foreign partners.
Among the high-profile missions and payloads he supported were the Spacelab series, Galileo and Ulysses spacecraft, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and the Hubble Space Telescope.
From 1996 to early 2002, Mr. Haddad served as KSC’s Point-of-Contact for Extra Vehicular Activities (EVA) and Crew Systems. In this role, he was responsible for the test, verification, and on-orbit support of Space Station EVA operations. His work included training flight crews on EVA hardware and tools, both with flight hardware at KSC and in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) at Johnson Space Center (JSC).
In January 2001, Mr. Haddad took on a detail assignment with KSC’s Spaceport Engineering & Technology Directorate. He worked on the Reverse Water Gas Shift (RWGS) project, developing a prototype system designed to convert the Martian atmosphere into usable propellant.
Beginning in April 2007, he joined the KSC Constellation Project Office/Systems Engineering and Integration Office, where he focused on Lunar Surface Systems.
After retiring from NASA KSC in December 2011, with 32 years of flight and ground systems engineering and operational experience, Mr. Haddad remained active in the space community. He became a member of the Astro Restoration Project team, dedicated to restoring the Astro Payload to its flight-like configuration as it flew on Space Shuttle missions STS-35 and STS-67.
He also co-authored the book Spacelab Payloads: Prepping Experiments and Hardware for Flight, documenting the critical work he and his colleagues performed early in his NASA career.