Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro ‘Embrace The Challenge’ Update June 20, 2025

Embrace The Challenge Keith’s note: this weekly ‘Embrace The Challenge Update’ includes a link to a site where y ou can post questions for a 25 June agency wide town hall. It asks for name an email. So I used Wehrner von Braun – [email protected] and I got in and posted “So much for cybersecurity.” FYI the comment field says “After submitting, your question will enter a moderation queue for approval” – In other words someone is going to filter the questions that Janet answers. Of course no one would ever think of censoring any of the questions that touch on certain topics. Just sayin’. Full memo below. As we move through summer, I know many of you are balancing mission demands, upcoming transitions, and well-earned time off. I want to thank you for everything you’re doing to keep us steady – whether you’re supporting a mission milestone, planning for what’s ahead, or helping maintain continuity at your center. As a reminder, we have an agencywide town hall scheduled for 1 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 25. You should have received a calendar invite, and here’s the link to submit questions online. Vanessa, Casey, Brian, and I know this is a challenging time, and we’re committed to having an open and honest conversation. Ahead of that, I want to acknowledge the very real challenges many organizations are facing as we work through the potential for a more focused budget. These impacts vary across mission directorates, centers, and support offices, but no part of the agency is untouched. Some have asked why we’re acting now, or whether we should wait to see how Congress acts. The reality is we must make responsible choices based on the funding we are projected to receive and begin shaping the workforce toward the missions we’ve been called to do. Using voluntary tools like the Deferred Resignation Program, Voluntary Early Retirement Authority, and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payment now gives us the best chance to prepare for the next Fiscal Year without resorting to other more disruptive actions. These are NASA’s decisions, made in service of our mission, and our people. Still, a lot continues to happen across the agency: More than 260 stakeholders from government, industry, and academia joined our Advanced Modeling & Simulation Seminar to learn about the Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) framework as the team gears up for its public release this fall. The framework is a computational fluid dynamics software system that can accurately simulate challenging problems central to our mission, from aircraft performance evaluation to launch environment characterization. I signed a new agreement this week at the Paris Air Show with our longtime partners at the German Aerospace Center – DLR – that will extend our collaboration in space medicine research. As part of this effort, DLR will provide radiation sensors to fly aboard Orion during Artemis II, helping us better understand the health risks of deep space exploration. This week, Expedition 73 aboard space station centered efforts on exercise research, spacesuit readiness, and science operations – including studying fluid behavior in microgravity using containerless liquid systems – while NASA teams on the ground continue to review the recent repair to the Zvezda module’s aft segment. Our TRACERS mission has reached an important milestone this week. The twin spacecraft – designed to study how solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetosphere – arrived at Vandenberg Space Force Base. They will soon be integrated with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a planned July launch. On June 13, years of space technology investments to expand commercial launch capabilities culminated in the successful maiden flight of UP Aerospace’s Spyder hypersonic rocket. The new launch system offers a low-cost vehicle to enable enhanced suborbital missions and planetary re-entry test environments. Finally, I’d like to congratulate Rich Burns at Goddard and John Blevins at Marshall on being named 2025 Service to America Medal honorees – better known as the Sammies. Rich led the OSIRIS-REx mission, which successfully returned samples from asteroid Bennu and is helping us better understand the origins of our solar system. John, as chief engineer for SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, played a key role in the Artemis I mission and is helping us prepare for Artemis II. These awards recognize the highest levels of public service, and Rich and John’s work reflects the dedication and excellence that define our NASA team. Embrace the Challenge, Janet