WASHINGTON
— Ed Weiler, the 30-year NASA veteran who agreed in March to lead the agency's
Science Mission Directorate temporarily, will fill that position permanently,
NASA announced Wednesday.
Weiler
returned on an
acting basis to the position he had held from 1998-2004 following the
abrupt March 25 resignation of Alan Stern after one year on the job. At the
time of Stern's resignation, Weiler was director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"I'm
very pleased to have Ed officially accept a more long-term position as science
chief. His leadership style and 26 years of headquarters experience will be
vital to the success of upcoming science activities and missions," NASA
Administrator Mike Griffin said in a prepared statement.
Weiler
joined NASA in 1978 as a staff scientist and was promoted to chief of the
agency's ultraviolet/visible and gravitational astrophysics division in 1979.
He also served as the chief scientist for the Hubble
Space Telescope from 1979 until 1998, when he then was promoted to
associate administrator for the agency's Space Science Enterprise — now the
Science Mission Directorate. He was appointed director of Goddard in August
2004.
Weiler will
lead the $5 billion Science Mission Directorate amid criticism of declining
Mars exploration spending plans and cost
overruns on the Mars Science Laboratory, a large rover slated for launch in
2009. Colleagues said political and bureaucratic demands of the job, as well to
opposition to his plans for dealing with the rover cost growth, prompted Stern
to resign.
Weiler said
in a recent
interview that he is not afraid to cancel programs that bust their budgets.
He also said back-to-back Mars mission failures in 1998 — under his watch as
science chief — taught him that cost controls should be balanced with good
engineering.
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