New Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate Selected

Starting January 4, physicist and former NASA astronaut John Grunsfeld will become the associate administrator for the space agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). This division controls the $5.1 billion NASA gets every year to conduct scientific exploration of space and the solar system.

He will control programs conducting science in the fields of astrophysics, Earth science, heliophysics and planetary science. Grunsfeld left NASA two years ago, to become the deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operated the Hubble Space Telescope.

The former astronaut himself participated in three missions to repair the famous telescope, after joining the agency in 1992. His experience in space also includes a 10-day stay on the Russian Mir station.

STScI, Grunsfeld's former employer, will also control the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), if and when the $8.8 billion machine is deployed, Space reports.