NASA Weekly Update – June 15, 2020
Our Mars Perseverance rover is making final steps to launch later next month. This and many other missions throughout the agency are making exciting progress. The steady cadence of accomplishments, even in the midst of the pandemic, is a testament to the remarkable team we have here at NASA.
- Top News: Last Friday, I announced my selection of Kathy Lueders as the next associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. Kathy’s decades of experience at NASA and expert insight make her the ideal person to help lead our effort to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024.
- Next Up: Tomorrow, June 16, I will give the keynote at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics first all virtual forum. I am excited to update everyone on all the exciting projects our Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate is working on and how NASA is reinventing aviation.
- Shout Out: Last week, we announced that our commercial partner, Astrobotic, will deliver our VIPER rover to the Moon’s South Pole in 2023. Great work by all those involved in making this selection as part of our Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. These partnerships bring together the best of industry and our scientific community to make our vision of lunar exploration a reality.
Great progress is being made in missions all over the agency. This is especially true in development of the X-57 Maxwell (pictured below), NASA’s first all-electric X-plane. Our commitment to expanding humanity’s scientific knowledge and technological capability is evident in teams across our agency.
Ad astra,
Jim Bridenstine
