BUSAN, South Korea — NASA’s head of space technology is leaving the agency just six months after taking the job, and the director of Langley Research Center will take over on an interim basis.
NASA announced on July 16 that its associate administrator for space technology, Kurt “Spazz” Vogel, is retiring effective immediately. The announcement did not give a reason for his departure.
“I thank Dr. Vogel for his contributions to NASA and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement announcing the transition.
Vogel became deputy administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate in January. He replaced Jim Reuter, who retired in June of last year. Vogel joined NASA in July 2021 as director of the Space Architecture Division, where he has led the agency’s development of architecture from the Moon to Mars.
Vogel’s departure came as a surprise to many in the industry. He had spearheaded a technology gap analysis, soliciting input from inside and outside NASA and developing a list of 187 topics where current technology doesn’t meet the agency’s needs. The goal of the analysis was to prioritize which areas to invest in going forward. In doing so, he said in an April speech, the goal was to maximize the value of the “effort-level” funding the agency receives.
Vogel was scheduled to give an update on the effort at the ASCEND conference in Las Vegas later this month. The status of the evaluation and future plans are unclear.
NASA announced that Clayton Turner will assume the role of associate administrator for space technology on an interim basis after serving as director of the Langley Research Center, whose activities include several space technology projects, since September 2019.
The interim director of Langley will be Dawn Schaible, deputy director of the Glenn Research Center, who served as Langley’s director of engineering prior to assuming the role of deputy director at Glenn in early 2023.
