NASA to split management of human spaceflight program

In a significant change with implications for future exploration missions, NASA will announce today that it is dividing the tasks of its human spaceflight office into two segments.

As part of the reorganization, the current head of the agency for all human space flight activities, Kathy Lueders, will see her duties reduced. NASA also brought back a former senior executive, Jim Free, to serve as the program leader.

Lueders will lead a segment of the new office, the Space Operations Mission Directorate, and oversee operational programs such as the International Space Station and commercial crew programs. The other part of the revamped office, with the unwieldy name Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, will handle the development of the Artemis Moon program, including the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System rocket, and the Space Launch System. human landing. Free will be the leader.

“Kathy has shown exceptional leadership and has overseen tremendous progress in her role as Associate Administrator for Human Spaceflight,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. “And we are delighted to welcome Jim back to the agency. Together, this dynamic duo will help shape the future of human exploration.”

According to NASA, the creation of two separate components of the manned space flight program “will ensure that these critical areas have in place targeted surveillance teams to support and execute the mission.” But this represents a significant change from the way NASA operated for nearly two decades, in which a single individual was responsible for human spaceflight.

Free was deputy to the longest-serving of these manned flight leaders, William Gerstenmaier, from 2016 to 2017. He was seen as a possible replacement by some at NASA, but Free left to work for Peerless Technologies in 2017 and recently worked as a consultant.

An agency source familiar with the change told Ars that Free’s return represents an effort to address a fairly “thin” board of directors within the space agency. This is the opportunity to bring back someone with experience in developing hardware for deep space missions.

However, another industry source was more critical of the change, saying it could be a setback for the trading space. “This will only add a layer of red tape and send mixed messages to Capitol Hill, industry and international partners,” the source said.

Lueders, by most accounts, has done a commendable job in recent years. Under his leadership, NASA and SpaceX were successful in pushing the commercial crew program safely to the finish line, with Crew Dragon now flying operational missions to the International Space Station. She also managed to push the Artemis program forward, selecting SpaceX to build a human landing system in April and persisting with that decision despite an outcry in Congress and a lawsuit filed by another lander bidder, Blue Origin.

It will now be taken out of this decision-making process by someone much less familiar with the commercial space.

The new head of the Artemis program, Free, was director of NASA’s Glenn Research Center from 2013 to 2016. Prior to that, Free was also in charge of the Orion spacecraft’s service module, giving him in-depth knowledge of traditional space programs. from NASA and its former contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

“I am delighted to be back at NASA,” Free said in a statement. “Working hand in hand with our colleagues in space operations, we will focus on the success of Artemis missions in the short term while clearly charting a defined path for human exploration of Mars as our horizon goal.”