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Joel Sitz is the project manager of the X-43 experimental aircraft at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, a position he has held since July 1998. Sitz is responsible for the overall flight research element of the Hyper-X Program, managed by the NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. The X-43A vehicle will feature the first free flight of an airframe-integrated, hypersonic Supersonic Combustion RamJet (SCRAMJET) engine.
Before assuming his present assignment, Sitz was deputy program manager at Dryden for NASA’s Aviation Safety Program from 1997 to 1998. He was also the project manager of the F-18 Systems Research Aircraft (SRA) and the L-1011 Adaptive Performance Optimization (APO) Project. His responsibilities included the development and flight evaluation of several advanced aircraft sensors and systems technologies that will be used to improve both the safety and performance of future military and commercial transport aircraft.

Previous to joining NASA in 1989 as an aerospace engineer, Sitz was employed by Honeywell Military Avionics Division. At NASA he became a software systems engineer on the X-29 Forward Swept Wing Project, responsible for real-time flight control software design, development and test.

At Dryden, Sitz has developed and performed research in advanced automated test tools to support flight control system validation for flight research projects including the X-29, F-18 High Angle of Attack and X-31 flight research programs. He was the deputy project manager for the F-16XL #2 Supersonic Laminar Flow Control Project. He was also the project manager responsible for transfer of Dryden business system operations from NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., when Dryden became an independent NASA center in 1994. As a member of Dryden’s Procedures and Policies Committee from 1990 to 1997, Sitz was responsible for updating Dryden’s Basic Operations Manual.

Sitz graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1982 with a bachelor of science degree in computer science. He received a master of science degree in engineering management in 1989 from Golden Gate University of San Francisco, Calif.