NASA Assistant Director Jim Frie announced on Wednesday his retirement, starting on Saturday, February 22nd. As a co -assistant, Fry was a senior adviser to NASA Director Janet Petro and leads NASA’s ten managers, in addition to the headquarters of Washington. He is the agency’s chief operational official for more than 18,000 employees and supervises an annual budget of more than $ 25 billion.
During his term as a co -official since January 2024, NASA added approximately twenty new signers from the ARTEMIS agreements, and enabled the first moon through the CLPS initiative (Commercial load services) to deliver NASA science to the moon, launched Europe, and launched Europa. Mission Clipper to study Jupiter’s Icy Ocean Moon, and found molecules containing ingredients for life in the Bennu asteroid samples that were delivered to Earth by Osiris-Rex (origins, spectral interpretation, resource identification, and the Reagole.
Petro said: “Throughout his career, Jim, the final servant leader, was always putting the task and the people of NASA first,” Petro said. “A wonderful engineer and a decisive leader, who combines deep technical experience with fixed commitment to the task of this agency. Jim’s legacy is one of the non -selfish services, fixed leadership, and belief in the power of people.”
Among the prominent contributions to the nation during his career in NASA, Frei also defended a new path forward to return samples from Mars before human missions to the Red Planet, supporting living crews and working on the International Space Station during the conduct of hundreds of experiences and technological demonstrations, and the participating industry in ways New to secure a public/private partnership for NASA’s VIPER mission (Folaatiles Investigation in Rove Polar Explography Rover) on the moon.
“It was an honor to serve NASA and walk alongside the workforce that deals with the most difficult engineering challenges, follows new scientific knowledge in our world and outside, and develop techniques for future exploration efforts, while giving priority to safety every day for people on Earth, in the air, in space, “Free said. “I am grateful to allow the opportunity to be part of the NASA family and contribute to the agency’s mission in favor of humanity.”
During more than three decades of service, free has made many leadership roles in the agency. Before his appointment as a co -director of NASA, he occupied Free as a co -assistant for the Directorate of Exploration Systems Development, where he supervised the successful ARTEMIS I mission and developed by MONS Moon to Mars Architecture, identifying and managing systems development of the ARTEMIS tasks of the agency, and planning the approach to exploring deep integrated space in NASA.
Free began his career in NASA in 1990 as an engineer, working to track satellite to track and deport data at the Guudard Space Center in NASA in Greenpelet, Maryland. He later moved to the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and served in a variety of roles that support the International Space Station and the development of the Orion spacecraft before moving to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2008. Free returned to NASA Glenn in 2009 and was promoted To the head of the Directorate of Space Aviation Systems, where he supervised the work of space for the center. Free Free, Deputy Director of the Center in November 2010, was then served as the director of the center from January 2013 to March 2016, when he was appointed to the position of NASA Deputy Director [sic] In the Directorate of Exploration and Human Operations.
Free in the northeastern Ohio, a Bachelor’s degree in Aviation Science from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a master’s degree in space systems engineering from Delphlet Technology University in the Netherlands.
Al -Hurra is the presidential presidential award, a distinguished service medal in NASA, the distinguished leadership medal in NASA, a NASA’s exceptional service medal, the important achievement medal in NASA, and many other awards.
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