A veteran aerospace engineer and manager with 38 years experience at Dryden, Petersen has served as the center's director for more than 10 years and is the longest-serving field center director currently at NASA. Dryden's deputy center director, David D. McBride, has been named acting director.
"Kevin's service to NASA exemplifies what's great about the people who make up America's space program — he's served with distinction and helped lead the agency aeronautics efforts into the 21st century," said NASA Acting Administrator Chris Scolese. During Petersen's tenure as center director, Dryden has been transformed from a field center primarily focused on aeronautics research and support for the space shuttle program to a center with major projects supporting all four of NASA's mission disciplines — environmental and space science, space exploration, human spaceflight and aeronautics. During the last decade, Dryden has accomplished many flight-research "firsts," including the flight of the Helios solar-electric aircraft to a world record altitude of 96,863 feet, the flight of the X-43A integrated scramjet vehicle to a speed of Mach 10, and the demonstration of fully autonomous in-flight aerial refueling capability.