NASA has chosen Kathy Lueders as the next head of human spaceflight for the space agency. She is the first woman to lead human spaceflight at NASA.
Why it matters: Lueders will be key to NASA's plans to land a crew on the surface of the Moon by 2024 as part of the Artemis program.
Background: Lueders previously managed the Commercial Crew Program, which scored a big win with SpaceX's first crewed mission to the International Space Station on May 30.
- “She has a deep interest in developing commercial markets in space, dating back to her initial work on the space shuttle program," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement referencing her work with Commercial Crew and Commercial Cargo, which uses private companies to bring supplies to the space station.
The intrigue: NASA's previous head of human spaceflight, Doug Loverro resigned suddenly in May after less than one year on the job.
- Loverro's goodbye note to the agency made reference to a "risk" he took that turned out to be a "mistake."
The big picture: It's not yet clear whether NASA will make its deadline for landing on the Moon in four years.
- The coronavirus has caused delays to some of the large projects — like the Space Launch System rocket — that are needed in order to get people to the lunar surface.
Go deeper: NASA's 2024 moonshot may not work
