Aaron Cohen, director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, has been selected as the interim head of NASA while a search continues for a successor to Richard Truly, who was forced to resign last week, an administration source said Thursday.
The appointment was made by Truly and was to be announced later Thursday.Truly will leave the administrator's job on April 1.
Cohen has been a NASA employee for 30 years and has headed the Johnson center since 1986, following the Challenger disaster. His new title will be acting deputy administrator.
The deputy's office has been vacant since J.R. Thompson resigned last year.
While Cohen is in Washington, former astronaut Paul J. Weitz will be in charge of the Johnson Center, home of Mission Control and NASA's astronaut training center, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Truly, a former Navy vice admiral and astronaut, returned to the space center to head the shuttle flight program after the Challenger explosion killed seven astronauts in 1986. Under his guidance as associate administrator for space flight, NASA resumed flying shuttles two years later.
Truly was named administrator in 1989, succeeding James Fletcher.