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Nicola Fox, former top scientist on the Parker Solar Probe
mission studying the sun, was named as NASA's associate
administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate.
A memo to agency employees from NASA chief Bill Nelson, obtained
by Reuters, first announced Fox's appointment. He lauded Fox's
past work on missions to better understand the sun and how solar
wind affects satellites and planets.
"She has been instrumental in making this complex area
accessible to the public," Nelson said. "Her work already spans
so many areas of importance to the agency."
NASA later announced Fox's appointment publicly on Monday,
saying her new role was effective immediately.
Fox will lead NASA's science directorate, a unit with an annual
budget of roughly $7 billion that oversees some of the agency's
best-known programs from the robotic hunts for past life on Mars
to exploring distant galaxies with the James Webb Space
Telescope.
She will also oversee a NASA study group formed in 2022 to help
the U.S. military detect and characterize UFOs, or so-called
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena - mysterious objects that the
White House and Pentagon officials see as threats to U.S.
airspace.
Fox succeeds Thomas Zurbuchen, a Swiss-American astrophysicist
who had led the directorate since 2016 before his retirement in
December. Sandra Connelly, formerly Zurbuchen's deputy, had led
the directorate in an acting capacity.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Will Dunham and David
Gregorio)
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