Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman named deputy director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA’s Artemis II mission, has been named associate vice president of Caltech and deputy director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. JPL, which is managed by Caltech, said he will begin the role on Nov. 30.

Wiseman is the final Artemis II crew member to announce his next professional step after the four astronauts ended their active spaceflight careers. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Wiseman brings technical judgment, operational experience and leadership that could help advance JPL’s work.

Wiseman announced in September that he would move to astronaut emeritus status, alongside Artemis II pilot Victor Glover. Glover later became an executive adviser to the president of California Polytechnic State University. Mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen have also left active astronaut duties. Hansen entered reservist service with the Royal Canadian Air Force, while Koch was appointed NASA’s acting deputy chief engineer effective Nov. 1.

The Artemis II crew launched aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft on April 1 and completed a 10-day journey around the far side of the moon before returning to Earth. The flight carried astronauts farther from Earth than any previous crewed space mission and served as a step in NASA’s Artemis program, which seeks to return humans to the lunar surface and eventually establish a permanent base.

NASA is targeting mid-2027 for Artemis III, described as a flight test involving Orion and the SpaceX Starship and Blue Origin Blue Moon lunar landers. Artemis IV is planned to lead to the program’s first crewed lunar landing in 2028, if the missions proceed as planned.

A Baltimore native, Wiseman is a retired U.S. Navy captain who worked as an aviator and test pilot before joining NASA’s astronaut corps in 2009. He first reached space aboard the Soyuz TMA-13M mission to the International Space Station, spending 165 days in orbit during Expeditions 40 and 41. He also completed two spacewalks totaling nearly 13 hours.

From December 2020 through November 2022, Wiseman served as NASA’s chief astronaut, overseeing crew readiness, astronaut assignments and flight safety before being selected for Artemis II.

At JPL, Wiseman will work under laboratory director Dave Gallagher and help oversee strategic leadership, stewardship and the ongoing improvement of laboratory operations. JPL is a federally funded research and development center focused on robotic space exploration, with projects including NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity Mars rovers, Europa Clipper and the Voyager probes. It also operates NASA’s Deep Space Network, which maintains communications with spacecraft across the solar system.

Wiseman said his experiences at NASA had taken him to the limits of human exploration, but described them as a starting point for helping Caltech and JPL pursue ambitious projects for NASA and the United States.

Sources: Space.com.