On Tuesday, July 22nd, 2025, crane tower above Mobile Launcher 2 adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center vehicle assembly building.
Richard Toribou | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
Joseph Pelfrey, director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, has announced his resignation from his role on Thursday, CNBC confirmed.
In an email to space agency employees, Pelfrey said, “it is important for the agency’s leadership to move forward with teams that choose to perform the task at hand.”
The email also said that Pelfree will work with NASA leaders to “pursuit new ways” to “serve our space program and our great nation.” Pelfrey could not immediately comment.
NASA confirmed Perfrey’s resignation and said in an email to CNBC it is in a “public competition” to “find the next permanent director at one of the agency’s most important spaceflight centres.”
At the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Perfrey oversaw “7,000 on-site civil servants and contractor employees” and “annual budget of approximately $5 billion.” According to the Centre’s official government website, the Space Center currently employs more than 6,000 people.
Perfrey had planned an all-hand meeting with Marshall employees that was cancelled this week, agency staff said. They said Pelfrey’s resignation was a surprise.
The White House’s 2026 budget request, which is not yet enacted by law, includes space agency funding. However, NASA resources are declining amid the Trump administration’s budget cuts.
Approximately 4,000 NASA employees left through a postponed resignation program offered by the agency, while others passed cuts launched by Government Efficiency (DOGE), an effort led by Elon Musk during his time with the Trump administration.
The administration also reimbursed and forced the closure of the NASA Goddard Space Research Institute, which was housed in a building owned by Columbia University in New York.
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