Key NASA officials' departure casts more uncertainty over U.S. moon program

This image provided by NASA shows a view from orbit looking obliquely across the surface of the moon, where an ancient asteroid strike carved out a pair of grand canyons on the moon’s far side. (Ernie T. Wright/NASA via AP)

WASHINGTON — NASA is losing four key senior officials close to its flagship moon program, according to people familiar with the changes, adding more uncertainty over the agency’s space exploration trajectory as Elon Musk and President Donald Trump play up missions to Mars.

Jim Free, NASA’s associate administrator who has been a central voice defending the agency’s Artemis moon program, is planning to leave the agency by Saturday, two sources said.

And in Huntsville, Alabama, three key officials at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center - one of the agency’s 10 field centers and the epicenter of its Artemis moon program - had their retirements announced internally on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the announcement.

Those roles at MSFC - chiefs of procurement, finance and information - were filled in an acting capacity by deputies and other NASA officials, the source said. No replacement for Free was announced, the two sources said.

NASA spokespeople did not return requests for comment.

The leadership shake-up adds more uncertainty over NASA’s direction in space as Musk, the CEO of SpaceX who has long envisioned crewed missions to Mars, oversees a sweeping review of NASA records as a “special employee” of the Trump administration seeking cuts to staff and programs.

Musk’s SpaceX has $15 billion worth of contracts with NASA.

Free, who is in mid 50s, announced his departure plans to agency officials in a meeting on Wednesday, saying it was a tough decision to make, one of the sources said.

Some agency officials expected his eventual departure as many Trump advisors criticize elements of NASA’s moon program, such as its Space Launch System, an over-budget but operational moon rocket.

Musk and Trump in recent months have regaled potential missions to Mars as a possible alternative to the moon, the much closer celestial body that Trump in his first presidential term had set as NASA’s core space exploration target, with long-term moon bases functioning as a proving ground for far-off Mars missions.

But with Musk’s roughly quarter-billion dollar support for Trump and his influential new role in the White House, talk of prioritizing new, more difficult missions to the Red Planet has threatened to upend an agency that since Trump’s first term has reoriented its structure and roughly $25 billion annual budget to focus on the moon.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Sandra Maler)