About Rocco Petrone
Rocco Anthony Petrone was an American mechanical engineer, U.S. Army officer and NASA official. He served as director of launch operations at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) from 1966 to 1969, as Apollo program director at NASA Headquarters from 1969 to 1973, as third director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center from 1973 to 1974, and as NASA Associate Administrator from 1974 until his retirement from NASA in 1975. Army, Petrone took part in developing the Redstone rocket, the first U.S. ballistic missile and the vehicle used to launch America's first astronauts, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on their suborbital missions. From 1973 to 1974, Petrone served as the first non-German administrator of the Marshall Space Flight Center, after Wernher von Braun and Eberhard Rees.
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