A plan by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin will see about twenty senior agency officials replaced.

The space agency will get a makeover, with Mr. Griffin reportedly ready to move around 20 long time staffers out of NASA by mid-August.

According to the Washington Post, several sources say that Mr. Griffin wants to build a management team with more of a focus on science than on politics. With a new administrator in place, it was expected that changes would be made.

Two officials known to be leaving their jobs, William Readdy and Michael Kostelnik, currently oversee the shuttle Discovery preparations for launch. July 13th would be the first day of a launch window for liftoff.

The twenty may not be the first to go. That number could climb as high as fifty senior managers, in order to help bring NASA back to its glory days as a flagship of research and exploration.

Mr. Griffin has to find a way to stay within his budget while helping plan a replacement for the shuttle. Also, the White House wants to see humans return to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions ended. Eventually, a manned Mars mission would be undertaken as well.

The process of notifying officials of their involuntary reassignment would begin today, 60 days after Mr. Griffin took the administrator job and 60 days before senior civil service could begin to be reassigned. It won’t be known right away how many of those officials may choose retirement or resignation instead of reassignment.

But one of them will be Craig Stiedle, associate administrator for exploration systems. He and Mr. Griffin had reportedly clashed over the process for replacing the space shuttle with the proposed crew exploration vehicle.

David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.