NASA undertakes major reorganization to reduce bureaucracy and move faster

“It is imperative to concentrate resources towards the highest priority objectives.”

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman sent a long email to employees on Friday morning outlining several structural changes that are intended to make the sprawling agency more efficient and allow it to better accomplish major goals, such as returning to the Moon and building a base there.

“I believe it is imperative to concentrate resources towards the highest priority objectives in the National Space Policy and liberate the best and brightest from needless bureaucracy and obstacles that impede progress,” Isaacman wrote in his 3,000-word letter.

Isaacman’s message stressed that no one at NASA will lose their jobs, and no field centers will be closed as part of these changes. Rather, the overall intent is to improve operational efficiency and focus on the agency’s core missions. Isaacman laid these out as: execute on the Artemis Program to return humans to the Moon; build an enduring Moon Base; develop a “Space Reactor Office” to get America underway on nuclear power in space; ignite an economy in low-Earth orbit; and build more X-planes and launch more science missions.

The changes appear to be an effort to reduce overhead and top-down management within NASA and return more power and decision-making to field centers. They attempt to reverse a decades-long trend at NASA toward bureaucracy and fiefdom building within the organization.

Two sources who previously worked at NASA and are familiar with its structural inefficiencies told Ars that these changes are, on balance, very positive for the agency. “I was concerned there was going to be more of a consolidation of authority at headquarters,” one of the people told Ars. “Instead this all appears to be broadly helpful to the mission.”

Consolidation of mission leadership

Previously, NASA had six main “Mission Directorates” that oversee its core areas, such as human exploration, science, and aeronautics. These are being combined into four directorates.

Why the change? According to NASA officials, it’s to simplify things for program leaders. Instead of needing to go to several different directorates for resources and major decisions, they will have to navigate fewer channels.

The leaders of the Mission Directorates below will also now report directly to Isaacman instead of Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, the agency’s top civil servant. This is to allow Kshatriya to take more technical ownership of projects within the agency. Widely respected among his peers, Kshatriya will accordingly also become chief engineer of NASA.

The consolidations are:

Combine Space Operations and Exploration Systems Development into a single Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate. The goal is to unify the strengths of NASA’s Exploration and Space Operations communities into a streamlined organization, built to deliver on the next era of human spaceflight.

Lori Glaze as Associate Administrator, with Joel Montalbano and Kelvin Manning as Deputies.

Within the directorate, the primary divisions will be:

• Low Earth Orbit, Dana Weigel as Program Manager (to include Commercial Crew, ISS, Commercial space stations)
• Moon Base, Carlos Garcia-Galan as Program Manager
• Artemis, Jeremy Parsons as Program Manager (renamed from Moon to Mars)

Aeronautics Research and Space Technology Mission Directorate will combine into a single Research and Technology Mission Directorate. This will unify NASA’s aeronautics, space technology, and nuclear power and propulsion capabilities into a single, fast-moving organization focused on delivering the breakthrough technologies our missions and the Nation require.

Dr. James Kenyon as Associate Administrator, with Wanda Peters as Deputy.

Within the directorate, the primary divisions will be:

• Aeronautics, Laurie Grindle as Director
• Advanced Research and Technology, Greg Stover as Director
• Space Reactor Office, Steve Sinacore as Acting Director
• Space Communications and Navigation, Kevin Coggins as Director

The Science Mission Directorate, under Nicky Fox, and Mission Support Directorate, under John Bailey, will be unchanged. However NASA will seek to streamline functions within Mission Support that overlap between headquarters and shift those responsibilities back to field centers.

Empowering field centers

A major theme in the letter is giving field centers more opportunities to focus on their core capabilities instead of competing in a cutthroat environment for resources.

Although NASA’s internal budgeting is not well understood outside the agency, field centers—including the main ones, such as the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida—do not receive much direct funding. Instead, they largely “compete” for funding from the Mission Directorates. In the words of one Houston-based source, “it has been an absolute disaster.”

Under the proposed changes, each field center will now receive a basic level of funding for its operations, allowing them to focus on their particular specialties rather than chasing funding across various Mission Directorate priorities.

“We will adjust the funding distribution so Centers have the financial support needed to sustain the baseline critical capabilities independent of near-term mission assignment,” Isaacman said in his letter. “In parallel, Centers will reduce the overhead burden applied to missions wherever applicable. This shift will allow Center Directors to focus on maintaining the infrastructure, workforce, and capabilities required for current and future missions.”

Isaacman has also kept most of the field center leadership in place (there had been some concern among long-time employees of a Red Wedding-like purge of center directors). This should provide stability at a time when the agency needs to focus on delivering major programs like Artemis.

One notable change is that Brian Hughes has been named director at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where Janet Petro recently retired. Hughes, a Florida public administrator and political operator who advised President Trump’s 2024 campaign, later served as NASA’s chief of staff in 2025. Two weeks ago, NASA announced he would become the agency’s first senior launch operations director, overseeing launch operations at Kennedy Space Center and the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This raised some eyebrows. Now, somewhat surprisingly, he’s ascending to lead Kennedy itself.

What to make of this? Is it reflective of political shenanigans? Hughes was abrasive during this stint as chief of staff last year, rubbing some NASA employees the wrong way. However, a NASA source said the agency needed someone with political chops to lead Kennedy. There is constant infighting there among users, such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other launch companies, in addition to conflicts with the Space Force and Federal Aviation Administration. When one spaceport user does something another user does not like, they call the White House.

“Now, when someone tells Hughes ‘give me what I want or I will call POTUS,’ Hughes can say, ‘So can I,’” this source told Ars.

Seeking fiscal efficiency

A main theme of the letter and proposed changes is increasing efficiency and achieving cost savings where possible.

“When you step back, it is worth considering how many additional missions we could have undertaken with the resources lost to program cancellations and cost overruns over the years,” Isaacman wrote. “That is the problem we must fix, so the American taxpayer and space-loving community can receive the highest scientific return on every dollar we spend at NASA.”

One notable area where NASA will seek efficiencies is at the famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. This planetary research center is not operated by NASA but is instead a federally funded research and development center managed by the California Institute of Technology. This California-based university has operated the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, essentially without competition, since the 1950s. Its contract expires in 2028. Isaacman said the Department of Energy has had success with opening up competition to run its federally funded research and development centers, and he believes NASA can do the same.

To that end, NASA will open a competition through the Request for Proposals mechanism for other universities to come in and operate the NASA Laboratory. Institutions like Purdue University and Texas A&M University are likely to be interested, with NASA’s goal to maximize the amount of science done per dollar invested.