The Register reports on the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suddenly stepping down for “personal reasons”:
During the November 2024 staff cuts, Leshin cautioned: “We can never be 100 percent certain of the future budget,” a comment that seems highly prescient today, considering the cuts proposed in Donald Trump’s administration’s “skinny” budget, which could result in the ax falling on several high-profile JPL projects, potentially including the Mars Sample Return mission.
Leshin’s tenure as director was also marked by many triumphs, not least the continued operation of the Mars rovers, flights of the Ingenuity helicopter, and saving the Voyager mission.
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David Gallagher, previously JPL’s associate director for Strategic Integration, has been selected by Caltech to lead the federally funded research and development center. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
Gallagher arrived at JPL 36 years ago. He led the team that built and tested the Wide Field/Planetary Camera 2 (WF/PC-2) – a critical instrument which corrected the spherical aberration on the Hubble Space Telescope – and, among other roles, managed the Spitzer Space Telescope.
The Register understands Gallagher was set for retirement, so his appointment is likely an interim one.