Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman Gets New Job at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Reid Wiseman, the commander of NASA's Artemis II mission, has a new job. NASA announced that Wiseman will become the deputy director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, known as JPL, starting November 30. JPL is one of NASA's most important research centers and is managed by a university called Caltech. This makes Wiseman the last of the four Artemis II crew members to announce what he will do after leaving active astronaut duty.

The Artemis II crew made history in April when they flew around the far side of the moon and back in just 10 days. They traveled farther from Earth than any astronauts in history, and people all around the world watched their journey with excitement. The four crew members were Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen of Canada. Their trip was the first time humans had flown around the moon in about 50 years.

After the mission ended, each astronaut chose a new path. Glover took a job as an advisor to the president of California Polytechnic State University, which is where he went to college. Hansen joined the reserves of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Koch became NASA's acting deputy chief engineer in November. Now Wiseman is joining JPL as its deputy director, working under the lab's director, Dave Gallagher.

Wiseman has had a long and impressive career in space and aviation. He grew up in Baltimore and became a U.S. Navy captain, working as a pilot and test pilot before NASA selected him as an astronaut in 2009. He first flew to space on a Russian Soyuz rocket and spent 165 days aboard the International Space Station, where he also completed two spacewalks that lasted nearly 13 hours combined. Before being chosen for Artemis II, he served as NASA's chief astronaut, managing crew assignments and flight safety.

In his new role at JPL, Wiseman will help lead the lab's day-to-day operations and long-term planning. JPL is famous for building and operating some of NASA's greatest robotic missions. These include the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers exploring Mars, the Europa Clipper spacecraft, and the Voyager probes that are traveling through deep space. JPL also runs NASA's Deep Space Network, which keeps in contact with spacecraft across the whole solar system.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman praised Wiseman's skills for the new position. 'Reid has spent his career at the edge of what is possible, and he has the technical judgment, operational experience, and leadership to help push that edge farther,' Isaacman said. Wiseman himself said his experience flying around the moon inspired him to take on even bigger challenges at JPL. 'But that experience was really the jumping off point to go do the impossible things that Caltech and JPL dream, dare together, and do for NASA and the nation,' Wiseman said.

The Artemis program that Wiseman helped advance is still moving forward. NASA plans to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. The next mission, Artemis III, is planned for mid-2027 and will test two lunar landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. If that goes well, Artemis IV could land the first crew on the moon in 2028, making history all over again.