Bolden Reorganizes Some Aspects of NASA

In a memo sent to senior agency officials on February 23, the current NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, announced a series of administrative changes that he set into effect. The reason for these changes is that the leader of the organization believes that things will run a lot smoother with these structural modifications in place, than without them. The most important change is the fact that, from now on, all mission directorate chiefs and field center directors will report directly to Bolden.

Mike Griffin, who was Bolden's predecessor during the Bush Administration, and the one who engaged the agency in building Project Constellation, put in place a structure that saw all these officials report to the NASA Associate Administrator. At this point, this position is being covered by Chris Scolese, whose job will change when the new memo goes into effect. According to the internal NASA document, a copy of which was obtained by Space News, Scolese will remain in charge of “integrating the technical and programmatic elements” that the agency is handling.

However, all 10 regional field center directors and all 4 mission directorate chiefs “will report directly to the Administrator rather than through the Associate Administrator,” the memo states. “While Center Directors do not hold programmatic budget authority they are responsible for providing support and guidance to programs and projects in resolving technical and programmatic risks. I expect Center Directors to proactively work with the Mission Directorates, programs, and projects to find constructive solutions to the problems we discover. This requires access and depth of penetration into mission program and project management. The Center Directors are expected to address this need within the Center's operating framework,” Bolden wrote in the document.

“These changes will strengthen NASA's capability to successfully execute our programs and projects. I look forward to working with a more integrated team and functioning together to advance our Nation's goals on Earth and in space exploration for the benefit of humanity,” he added. The memo shows that no change will come to any of the NASA's four mission directorates - Aeronautics, Exploration Systems, Science and Space Operations. However, the Office of Strategic Communication and the Office of Institutions and Management will be disbanded, and some of their functions taken over by the newly-formed Mission Support directorate.