JANET E. PETRO

DIRECTOR, NASA’S JOHN F. KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, MERRITT ISLAND

Growing up in Satellite Beach just south of Cape Canaveral, Petro had a front row seat to the space program. Her father worked on the Gemini, Mercury, Apollo and space shuttle programs. A West Point graduate and engineer, in 2021 she became the first woman to lead Kennedy Space Center, Earth’s premier spaceport. KSC’s workforce, including contractor and commercial partners’ employees, totals more than 12,000. Previously she spent 14 years as deputy director, helping to transform KSC into a thriving launch center for government and commercial space exploration following the space shuttles’ retirement. She’s KSC’s director as NASA embarks on the Artemis program, which intends to return astronauts to the moon and eventually Mars.