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NASA's director Jim Bridenstine informed agency staff in a memo Wednesday night that NASA veteran Bill Gerstenmaier would no longer head the Human Exploration and Operations mission.
Instead, said Bridenstine, Gerstenmaier will be the special assistant to NASA's deputy administrator, Jim Morhard.
Gerstenmaier was ousted from his role a few hours after testifying in front of Congress about the future of the International Space Station and his plans for the low Earth orbit.
In his memo, Bridenstine said the reallocation was aimed at achieving the goal of sending a man and the very first woman to the moon in the next five years.
He named Kenneth Bowersox, a former NASA astronaut who flew five space shuttle flights, as the new acting deputy administrator.
"(Gerstenmaier) has been working at NASA for 42 years and we love it.In fact, we now have the opportunity to land on the moon in 2024 thanks to the hard work that he has done. put on the program, "Bridenstine told Fox. News in an interview published Thursday. "But we sometimes have to remember that he started working at NASA at the age of 2 and that there comes a time in every career where it's time to move on." "
The Washington Post announced that leadership had been turned upside down while Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials were frustrated by the agency's lack of progress and had presented their grievances to Bridenstine at a recent meeting.
Officials also told the newspaper that there was tension between Bridenstine and Gerstenmaier.
Bridenstine told the Post Thursday that his decision was made by himself – not at all by the White House. He also denied the existence of a tension between them and told the Post that he thought "extremely" to Gerstenmaier.
CNN contacted a spokeswoman for Bridenstine.
Two prominent Democrats in the House prevented Bridenstine from overthrowing Gerstenmaier from his leadership role.
Gerstenmaier began his career at NASA in 1977 conducting aeronautical research. During his long career at the agency, he led the International Space Station and also led the safe completion of at least 21 Space Shuttle missions.
The Democratic Chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology said she was "bewildered" by Bridenstine's decision to downgrade Gerstenmaier without a permanent replacement for that position.
"The Trump Administration's ill-defined crash program to land astronauts on the Moon in 2024 was going to be ambitious enough to be done under the best of circumstances," said Texas Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson. in a statement. "Removing the experienced engineering leadership of this effort and the rest of the country's manned space flight programs at such a crucial time seems at best wrong."
Representative Kendra Horn of Oklahoma, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, said she was "concerned about the impacts that such radical changes could have in our country's manned space flight programs "at a time when they test the Launch System space and the Orion spacecraft that will help the crew get to the moon.
Vice President Mike Pence announced in March that the Trump administration wanted to accelerate NASA's plans to reach the moon – by launching the mission in 2024 instead of 2028.
"If NASA is not currently able to bring American astronauts to the moon in five years, we have to change the organization, not the mission," Pence said.
The new timetable gives NASA only five years to acquire the equipment and funds it needs.
Bridenstine told CNN Business in June that NASA would need $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion over the next five years for its Moon Artemis project.
The equipment that NASA needs is either late, well over budget, or does not exist yet.
The Artemis mission could send people to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.
Jackie Wattles and Rachel Crane from CNN contributed to this report.
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