The US space agency NASA to name a woman as its ‘science chief’ for the first time

The US space agency NASA will designate a woman as its ‘science chief’ for the first time. An official familiar with the development stated that Nicola Fox, who currently oversees the agency’s heliophysics division, will be named the new chief this week.

Fox will be appointed as the agency’s Science Mission Directorate’s assistant administrator for NASA. She will be in charge of NASA’s science directorate, a division with a nearly $7 billion annual budget, and will oversee some of the organization’s most well-known initiatives, such as robotic searches for extraterrestrial life on Mars and the James Webb Space Telescope’s exploration of far-off galaxies, according to Reuters.

Prior to this, Fox served as the principal investigator on the Parker Solar Probe project, which carried out extensive research on the sun.

Bill Nelson, NASA’s Administrator made the announcement in an email to the agency workers on Monday, lauded Fox’s past mission on Sun to better understand the sun and how the solar wind affects satellites and planets.