NASA announced Friday an agencywide realignment designed to sharpen mission focus and advance the National Space Policy. These strategic changes aim to position the agency for more efficient and timely delivery of the nation’s top-priority objectives.
During the Ignition event in late March, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and agency leaders identified critical objectives for the next phase of American space leadership. These align with President Trump’s Executive Order Ensuring American Space Superiority, also known as the National Space Policy, which directs NASA to concentrate talent and resources on accelerating the Artemis program, establishing a Moon Base, developing a nuclear space reactor, stimulating the orbital economy, and expanding scientific and discovery missions.
To support these ambitious goals, NASA is implementing measures to enhance specialization at its centers and integrate mission directorates, thereby improving the delivery of technically excellent work. Key actions include:
- Center directors will continue reporting to Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, with enhanced authority to cultivate the unique strengths of each center and bolster investments in infrastructure and workforce well-being.
- Mission directorates will now report directly to the administrator, ensuring a clear mission focus and enabling more efficient utilization of resources across centers, industry, and international collaborations.
- The associate administrator will also assume the role of NASA chief engineer, reinforcing the agency’s technical foundation and ensuring consistency and independence in critical engineering decisions.
- NASA is committed to rebuilding core competencies, transitioning contractors to civil servant roles where appropriate, strengthening the intern program, and utilizing the joint recruitment initiative with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, NASA Force, to build a robust and sustainable workforce for the future.
“This initiative reflects NASA’s extreme focus on executing the mission in direct support of the National Space Policy. We are focusing resources on the most pressing objectives only NASA is capable of undertaking and liberating the workforce from unnecessary bureaucracy and obstacles that impede progress. We aim to rebuild competencies and instill a culture that attracts the best and brightest capable of pursuing the most demanding engineering challenges and moving safely and urgently,” said Isaacman. “There will be no reduction in force, no program cancellations, no closures, but we will achieve cost savings through more efficient execution and taking an active role in delivering the outcomes the world has been waiting for from NASA. This is how we deliver on the mission, meet the moment, and continue to make history on behalf of the American people.”
The mission directorate realignment includes the following changes:
- Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate (HSMD): Combining the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and Space Operations Mission Directorate, HSMD will oversee human spaceflight operations to both low Earth orbit and the Moon.
- Research and Technology Mission Directorate (RTMD): The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate and Space Technology Mission Directorate will merge into RTMD. This consolidated organization will manage research, space technology, and aeronautics, including nuclear power and propulsion development, ensuring NASA possesses the necessary capabilities for current and future missions.
- Science Mission Directorate (SMD): This directorate remains unchanged, continuing its role in supporting NASA’s leading scientific discoveries.
Additional leadership appointments, in alphabetical order, are:
- John Bailey, associate administrator, Mission Support Directorate
- Kevin Coggins, director, SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation), RTMD
- Wesley Deadrick, director, Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility
- Jamie Dunn, director, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Carlos García-Galán, program manager, Moon Base, HSMD
- Dr. Lori Glaze, associate administrator, HSMD
- Laurie Grindle, director, Aeronautics Division, RTMD
- Marvin Horne, deputy assistant administrator for Procurement
- Brian Hughes, director, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
- Kathleen Karika, associate administrator, Office of International and Interagency Relations, OIIR
- Dr. James Kenyon, associate administrator, RTMD
- Kelvin Manning, deputy associate administrator, HSMD
- Meredith McKay, deputy associate administrator, OIIR
- Dave Mitchell, special assignment lead for NASA Headquarters Relocation
- Joel Montalbano, deputy associate administrator, HSMD
- Bradley Niese, associate administrator for Procurement
- Eli Ouder, acting deputy associate administrator, Mission Support Directorate
- Jeremy Parsons, program manager, Artemis, HSMD
- Bob Pearce, retiring as head of ARMD after a 36-year career at NASA
- Wanda Peters, deputy associate administrator, RTMD
- Dawn Schaible, director, NASA’s Glenn Research Center
- Cynthia Simmons, deputy director, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
- Steve Sinacore, acting director, Space Reactor Office; program manager for SR-1, LR-1, RTMD
- Adam Steltzner, chief engineer for Special Projects
- Greg Stover, director, Advanced Research and Technology Division, RTMD
- Dana Weigel, program manager, Low Earth Orbit, HSMD
Leadership at unlisted centers remains unchanged.
For more information, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-leadership
