Caltech and NASA say Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman will become associate vice president at Caltech and deputy director of JPL, starting on November 30, 2026.
Caltech and NASA announced that Reid Wiseman, who commanded the Artemis II crewed lunar flyby, has been named Caltech associate vice president and deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. Described by NASA as an emeritus astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain, Wiseman is due to begin the dual role on November 30, 2026. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said Wiseman has the technical judgment, operational experience and leadership to help push the laboratory further.
According to NASA, Wiseman will be responsible for strategic leadership, stewardship and continuous improvement of JPL's operations, working closely with Caltech, which manages the laboratory for NASA, on institutional planning, management and compliance. He will also serve as Center Management Authority for JPL mission execution, ensuring operational excellence across mission support functions under NASA requirements, and will be the lab's primary interface for national security programs. JPL is NASA's only federally funded research and development center and is approaching the 90th anniversary of its founding by Caltech.
NASA says Wiseman joined the astronaut corps in 2009, served 165 days as a flight engineer on the International Space Station during Expedition 41 in 2014, and lived for eight days in an undersea habitat in 2016 as commander of the 21st NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations expedition. He was NASA's chief astronaut from December 2020 to November 2022. On Artemis II, he, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen travelled 695,081 miles on a lunar flyby, which NASA describes as farther than any humans have gone. JPL director Dave Gallagher said Wiseman adds strong leadership depth, while Wiseman said the mission was a starting point for the ambitious work Caltech and JPL pursue.
