NASA is losing four key senior officials close to its flagship moon program, according to people familiar with the changes, adding more uncertainty over the agency's space exploration trajectory as Elon Musk and President Donald Trump play up missions to Mars.Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator who has been a central voice defending the agency's Artemis moon program, is planning to leave the agency by Saturday, two sources said.And in Huntsville, Alabama, three key officials at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center - one of the agency's 10 field centers and the epicenter of its Artemis moon program - had their retirements announced internally on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the announcement.Those roles at MSFC - chiefs of procurement, finance and information - were filled in an acting capacity by deputies and other NASA officials, the source said. No replacement for Free was announced, the two sources said.NASA spokespeople did not return requests for comment.The leadership shake-up adds more uncertainty over NASA's direction in space as Musk, the CEO of SpaceX who has long envisioned crewed missions to Mars, oversees a sweeping review of NASA records as a "special employee" of the Trump administration seeking cuts to staff and programs.Musk's SpaceX has $15 billion worth of contracts with NASA, including a contract to land humans on the moon with its Starship rocket.Free, who is in mid-50s, announced his departure plans to agency officials in a meeting on Wednesday, saying it was a tough decision to make, one of the sources said.Some agency officials expected his eventual departure as many Trump advisors criticize elements of NASA's moon program, such as its Space Launch System, an over-budget but operational moon rocket.More missions to Mars?Elon Musk and Donald Trump in recent months have regaled potential missions to Mars as a possible alternative to the moon, the much closer celestial body that Trump in his first presidential term had set as NASA's core space exploration target, with long-term moon bases functioning as a proving ground for far-off Mars missions.But with Musk's roughly quarter-billion-dollar support for Trump and his influential new role in the White House, talk of prioritizing new, more difficult missions to the Red Planet has threatened to upend an agency that since Trump's first term has reoriented its structure and roughly $25 billion annual budget to focus on the moon.Jeff Bezos, whose space company Blue Origin has a multi-billion-dollar contract with NASA to land humans on the moon after SpaceX's Starship, told Reuters in January the Trump administration should stay on course with the moon program.Free, who had previously led NASA's moon-to-Mars strategy office, was named by Joe Biden's NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, as his acting replacement before Trump took office last month, per NASA tradition for several past presidential transitions.
