Astronomy Prints 🌌: Editor's Choice: NOAA official placed on leave

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Editor's Choice: NOAA official placed on leave

07/30/2025

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By Dan Robitzski

Stephen Volz, NOAA's top satellite official, was placed on administrative leave in a surprising move that, absent an official explanation, has fueled speculation about a delayed punitive measure by the Trump administration.

Let's rewind back to 2019, when Trump unveiled a map of Hurricane Dorian's projected path that appeared to have been hand-edited with a marker to retroactively align with his false claim that Alabama was in the storm's path.

Here's how SpaceNews senior staff writer Jeff Foust described the event in his story on Volz's departure.

The incident resulted in complaints that NOAA's actions, which included a statement that appeared to undercut past statements by forecasters that the hurricane was not a threat to Alabama, violated the agency's scientific integrity policies. NOAA asked the National Academy of Public Administration to convene a panel to review the complaints, and that panel found that [then-acting NOAA administrator Neil] Jacobs violated NOAA's code of ethics regarding development of that statement.

The findings of that panel were accepted by NOAA in a June 2020 memo signed by the designated scientific integrity determining official at the agency, Stephen Volz.

CNN, which first broke the story, reported that Volz was notified that his leave is linked to an investigation into unspecified "recent conduct."

In a July 28 Linkedin post, Volz thanked his colleagues for their service and to celebrate NESDIS's accomplishments.

"Last Thursday, I received an email out of the blue from the NOAA Chief of Staff who is performing the duties of the NOAA administrator stating that I was placed on Administrative Leave immediately," Volz wrote. "The single page memo indicated I would 'remain in this status until further notice, pending the outcome of an investigation into (my) recent conduct.' When I know more about what drove this action, and what conduct was considered egregious, I will share it with you."

SIGNIFICANT DIGIT

~4,000

That's the number of NASA employees — representing about one-fifth of the agency's civil servants — who have opted to take a voluntary buyout. NASA said July 18 that about 3,000 civil servants elected to participate in a second round of a deferred resignation program along with other voluntary departure initiatives. They join 870 who departed in a first round earlier this year.

The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-8 (OTV-8) is scheduled to lift off no earlier than August 21, 2025, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: U.S. Space Force

OTV-8

The military is gearing up its highly secretive X-37B spaceplane for its eighth mission, dubbed Orbital Test Vehicle-8 (OTV-8), with the Space Force announcing the spaceplane will launch on a Falcon 9 by August 21 at the earliest.

During OTV-8, the spaceplane will test out new laser communications technology and a quantum inertial sensor, which is meant to offer precise navigational signals when GPS is unavailable and is expected to prove more resilient than traditional inertial sensors.

10 IS THE NEW 20

We're at the point of the year where material reality is catching up to ambitious projects from the space industry. Specifically, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno recently shared on a CNBC podcast that the company is halving the number of missions it expects to launch this year, down from 20 to "about half of that."

Bruno didn't give a reason for the lower projection, but it likely comes down to the fact that ULA has yet to launch rocket Vulcan this year amidst plans to transition away from its Atlas 5 workhorse.

Trending This Week

A Vega C rocket successfully launched five imaging and Earth science spacecraft July 25, deploying the CO3D and MicroCarb missions into separate sun-synchronous orbits.

EraDrive, a Stanford spinoff, won a $1 million NASA contract to detect, identify and track space objects.

A House appropriations bill provides funding for the civil space traffic coordination system known as the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS) but wants changes to increase its reliance on the Defense Department.

China launched new Guowang satellites July 27, expanding its LEO broadband network as part of a growing effort to build a sovereign space internet.

FROM SPACENEWS

Tune in on Thursday, July 31 at 1 p.m. ET as leading experts unpack what is needed to build the technological backbone of the Golden Dome initiative and its implications for the future of national security. This conversation, moderated by SpaceNews' Sandra Erwin, will explore the critical role of data fusion, machine learning and edge AI in enabling the Golden Dome's mission: Building a resilient, intelligent architecture to safeguard U.S. interests. Register now.

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