WASHINGTON — NASA’s associate administrator will leave the agency at the end of the week as uncertainty continues about the timing and scope of potential job cuts.
In a statement late Feb. 19, NASA announced that Associate Administrator Jim Free will retire from the agency, effective Feb. 22. Free had been associate administrator, the top civil-service position in the agency, since the retirement of Bob Cabana at the end of 2023.
Free was previously associate administrator for exploration systems development, a position NASA created in 2021 when it split the former Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate into two directorates, one overseeing exploration programs and the other the International Space Station and related operations. Earlier in his 30-year NASA career, he was director of the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
The announcement did not disclose why Free was leaving the agency now or his future plans. “I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the NASA family and contribute to the agency’s mission for the benefit of humanity,” he said in a statement.
As associate administrator, Free was expected to become acting administrator when Bill Nelson and Pam Melroy stepped down as administrator and deputy administrator, respectively, at the end of the Biden administration. Immediately after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president Jan. 20, NASA’s website was updated to list Free as acting administrator.
However, several hours later the White House announced it had selected Janet Petro, director of the Kennedy Space Center, as acting administrator. The decision reportedly even took top agency officials by surprise.
The White House did not explain why it chose Petro to be the agency’s interim leader. There is speculation, though, that it did so because they considered Free too much of an advocate of the current Artemis lunar exploration architecture, one that the administration is considering revising.
Free, in a speech at a conference in Huntsville, Alabama, before the election, urged the next administration not to make major changes to Artemis. “We need that consistency in purpose. That has not happened since Apollo,” he said then. “If we lose that, I believe we will fall apart and we will wander, and other people in this world will pass us by.”
“Jim’s legacy is one of selfless service, steadfast leadership, and a belief in the power of people,” Petro said in a statement about Free.
The announcement of Free’s departure comes a day after the agency avoided, at least temporary, major layoffs. The projected firings of probationary civil-service employees — those who have been hired in the last year or recently moved into new positions — would have involved 1,000 or more people at NASA, but did not materialize.
In a Feb. 19 statement, NASA said it was working with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on both the status of probationary employees as well as those who signed up for the Deferred Resignation Program, a buyout where employees resign but are paid through the end of the fiscal year. At least 750 NASA employees, and potentially more than 900, agreed to the buyout, according to sources, but the agency has not provided a figure.
Some probationary employees are among those who signed up for the buyout, the agency stated, and will go on administrative leave by the end of the week. “NASA is working with OPM on exemptions for those in the probationary period in mission critical functions,” the agency added.
The agency has reportedly sought a blanket exemption for all or most of its probationary employees from layoffs. It was not clear, though, why NASA would get special treatment when the administration has been firing probationary employees, with limited exceptions, across other federal agencies.
Some have questioned the legality of those firings, arguing that even probationary employees can only be fired for cause. “In order to be fired in federal government as a probationary employee, it has to be for performance reasons or misconduct,” argued Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) during a town hall Feb. 19 in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington. “In these cases, that was not what they did.”
He said he supported efforts in the courts to reinstate fired probationary employees. “We are going to fight to get them fully reinstated with all their protection, and I think we have a very reasonable chance of success in many of these cases, if not all of these cases.”
