Another scientist with ties to America’s space program has now joined the growing list of deaths and disappearances around the US.
Michael David Hicks, a research scientist at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), passed away on July 30, 2023 at the age of 59, but the cause of death was never made public, and no record of an autopsy being performed could be found.
Hicks, who worked at JPL from 1998 to 2022, was credited with publishing over 80 scientific papers and was part of multiple teams helping NASA understand the physical properties of comets and asteroids.
Specifically, Hicks was involved with the DART Project, NASA’s test to see if humans could deflect dangerous asteroids away from Earth. He also worked on the Deep Space 1 Mission, which tested new spacecraft technology that flew by a comet in 2001.
While there have been no public allegations of foul play, Hicks’ case marks the ninth person with ties to America’s space or nuclear secrets who has died or mysteriously vanished in recent years, which has set off alarm bells among US national security experts.
Moreover, three of these scientists had close ties to Hicks, as all of them worked at the Jet Propulsion Lab or participated in NASA missions there. Monica Reza, JPL’s new Director of the Materials Processing Group, vanished without a trace in June 2025, just months after beginning her tenure at the NASA lab.
Two other men with deep ties to JPL died recently, including a long-time coworker of Hicks, Frank Maiwald, who died in July 2024 at age 61, with even less public acknowledgement of his untimely passing.
Meanwhile, astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, was murdered on the front porch of his home on February 16, 2026. The California Institute of Technology researcher’s work was heavily supported by NASA’s JPL, and Grillmair was personally involved with major space telescope missions led by NASA.
The Daily Mail has reached out to NASA, Hicks’ alma mater at the University of Arizona, and the scientist’s friends and colleagues for comment on the circumstances surrounding his death.
Strangely, a series of online obituaries dedicated to Hicks did not mention any health issues before the 59-year-old’s death, which appeared to happen suddenly, roughly one year after leaving NASA JPL.
A similar situation unfolded after Maiwald’s death on July 4, 2024, when the prominent JPL researcher died in Los Angeles from unknown circumstances.
Despite Maiwald being a JPL Principal – an award given to scientists ‘making outstanding individual contributions’ in their fields – there were no public comments from authorities after the esteemed scientist’s death, and the only public record marking his passing was a single obituary posted online.
NASA and JPL have not commented on the deaths of Maiwald or Hicks, and did not reply to Daily Mail’s inquiries into the nature of the scientists’ work before their deaths.
In June 2023, just 13 months before his death, Maiwald was the lead researcher on a breakthrough that could help future space missions detect clear signs of life on other worlds in the solar system and beyond.
As for the other JPL-connected scientist, Grillmair had contributed to the discovery of water on a distant planet, with colleagues calling his work ‘ingenious’ and adding that the research could point to signs of life less than 160 light-years from Earth.
According to his Caltech profile, he also worked on the NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor, infrared space telescopes that track asteroids. However, experts have also expressed concern that this technology has also been used in advanced missile designs.
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