From the Moon to the lab: Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman named JPL deputy director

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has named NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman associate vice president and deputy director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Caltech manages JPL in Pasadena for NASA; the lab specialises in robotics and deep space exploration. Wiseman takes up the post on 30 November 2026. The appointment was announced on 28 October at Caltech's "Brave New Space Age" event, where the video of Wiseman accepting the role was also shown.

According to Caltech, Wiseman will be responsible among other things for the strategic leadership and continuous improvement of laboratory operations, for JPL mission execution, and will serve as JPL's primary interface for national security programmes. "What an awesome time in my career to join this team," Wiseman said, according to JPL.

The retired U.S. Navy captain and former test pilot joined NASA's astronaut corps in 2009 and was its chief astronaut from December 2020 to November 2022. In 2014 he spent 165 days on the International Space Station. As commander of Artemis II he flew around the Moon with Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen; according to JPL the crew covered about 1.1 million kilometres and travelled farther from Earth than any humans before them.