NASA announced today that Mars Program Director, G. Scott Hubbard, has decided to leave that position following a successful year leading the agency’s robotic exploration program. Orlando Figueroa, currently the Deputy Chief Engineer for Systems Engineering at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, was appointed to replace Hubbard as Acting Director, starting May 6. “Scott Hubbard was given ‘mission impossible’ and turned it into ‘mission accomplished,'” said Dr. Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for Space Science at NASA Headquarters. “When we were hit with the back-to-back loss of two Mars missions, I knew we had to get the best person on the job. Scott did a top-to-bottom reorganization of the program, and earlier this month we had the first launch in the new program, the 2001 Mars Odyssey.”