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Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman named deputy director for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA's Artemis II mission, has been named deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He will also serve as a Caltech associate vice president, starting Nov. 30. Wiseman is the last of Artemis II's four astronauts to announce a post-flight career move.
Wiseman and pilot Victor Glover said in September they would become "astronaut emeritus." Glover has since become executive advisor to the president of Cal Poly. Mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen also left active spaceflight; Hansen joined Royal Canadian Air Force reservist duty, while Koch became NASA's acting deputy chief engineer on Nov. 1.
Artemis II launched April 1 aboard NASA's Orion capsule. The quartet completed a 10-day flight around the far side of the moon and back. It took them farther from Earth than any crewed spaceflight in history and drew global attention.
The mission is a stepping stone for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface and eventually build a permanent base. NASA targets mid-2027 for Artemis III, a flight test with Orion and two landers, SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon. A crewed lunar landing is planned for Artemis IV in 2028.
Wiseman is a Baltimore native and retired U.S. Navy captain. He joined NASA's astronaut corps in 2009, spent 165 days on the International Space Station, performed two spacewalks and served as chief astronaut from December 2020 to November 2022. At JPL, he will serve under Director Dave Gallagher and help oversee laboratory operations.
JPL, managed by Caltech, specializes in robotic space exploration and runs the Deep Space Network, which communicates with spacecraft across the solar system. Its missions include Perseverance, Curiosity, Europa Clipper and Voyager. Wiseman said his space experience was "the jumping off point" for work with Caltech and JPL.
