NASA loses another senior official as tension grows about the agency's future

NBC News

a day ago

The director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center announced her resignation Monday, marking yet another high-profile departure as questions loom about the agency's budget and future.
Makenzie Lystrup, who has served as director of the center in Maryland since April 2023, will leave the agency on Aug. 1, according to a NASA statement. Goddard oversees a number of key NASA missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the OSIRIS-REx mission that collected samples from an asteroid.
Lystrup's resignation comes less than two months after Laurie Leshin stepped down as director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The departures are playing out as NASA and other government agencies contend with significant cuts to funding and personnel, as part of a broader push to shrink the size of the federal workforce. Questions are swirling internally at NASA and on Capitol Hill about how the space agency can accomplish its work with far fewer personnel and why such cuts are moving ahead before Congress has authorized the agency's budget.
Meanwhile, more than 2,000 senior-level employees are set to leave NASA as part of an effort to cut the agency's workforce, as was first reported by Politico. Those include people in senior positions of management and individuals with specialized skills, Politico reported, raising concerns about a 'brain drain' at the space agency.
Workers at the space agency have until Friday to accept 'deferred resignations,' buyouts or early retirement offers.
President Donald Trump's proposed budget for 2026 would slash about 25%, or more than $6 billion, from NASA's budget. The steepest cuts would come out of the agency's space science, Earth science and mission support divisions, according to the budget blueprint.
If enacted by Congress, the budget would also phase out NASA's Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft, which the agency was developing to return astronauts to the moon.
In response to the budget blueprint, more than 280 current and former NASA employees signed a letter to Sean Duffy, NASA's interim administrator, stating that the Trump administration's recent policies 'have or threaten to waste public resources, compromise human safety, weaken national security, and undermine the core NASA mission.'
The letter, known as the Voyager Declaration, said the changes have caused 'catastrophic impacts' to the agency's workforce, and have 'prioritized political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement, and efficient use of public resources.'
Before NASA's prior acting administrator Janet Petro was replaced by Duffy, employees pressed her to explain how the budget cuts and restructuring underway served the best interests of the space agency, according to internal correspondence read by NBC.
It's not clear if Lystrup and Leshin's departures are related to the ongoing turmoil at NASA and other government agencies. In NASA's announcement about Leshin's resignation, it said she was stepping down 'for personal reasons.'
The agency did not provide a reason for Lystrup's resignation. In an internal email obtained by NBC News, Lystrup said she leaves with 'confidence' in the Goddard's leadership team 'and all of you who will shape the next chapter of this center.'
'I am honored to have been part of this incredible journey with you,' she wrote in the email. 'It has been my privilege.'
NASA said Monday that Cynthia Simmons, who currently serves as Goddard's deputy director, will take over as acting center director in August.