NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab has introduced a second spherical of layoffs for 2024, this time shedding 325 folks – about 5% of its workforce. The announcement was made on Nov. 12 in a memo despatched to workers, which notes the layoffs may have been even bigger. The final reduce was made this previous February, when 530 workers had been let go. A part of the problems which compelled the layoffs comes from the the potential cancelation of the Mars Pattern Return mission. With the October 2024 launch of Europa Clipper, JPL doesn’t have a flagship mission within the pipeline proper now.

As with the layoffs in February, the cuts don’t have anything to do with the person efficiency; it’s all budget-related and an try to steadiness the books. NASA Headquarters handed on funding constraints within the present finances to JPL, and whereas JPL has tried to handle them, the outcomes are the 2 rounds of inauspicious layoffs.  

“This can be a message I had hoped to not have to write down,” JPL Director Laurie Leshin stated within the memo despatched to all workers members. “Regardless of this being extremely troublesome for our neighborhood, this quantity [of layoffs] is decrease than projected just a few months in the past thanks partially to the onerous work of so many individuals throughout JPL.”

Leshin stated the lab’s management has needed to take care of “continued funding challenges” and an unsure future as NASA has been juggling and reconsidering its priorities for deep house exploration. She famous that the discount was unfold throughout almost all areas of JPL, together with technical, venture, enterprise, and assist areas to satisfy the out there funding for Fiscal 12 months 2025. Leshin stated that the result of the presidential election final week didn’t have any bearing on the layoffs.

“We’ve taken critically the necessity to re-size our workforce, whether or not direct-funded (venture) or funded on overhead (burden). With decrease budgets and based mostly on the forecasted work forward, we needed to tighten our belts throughout the board, and you will note that mirrored within the layoff impacts,” Leshin wrote.

All workers had been informed to work at home immediately (Nov. 13) and everybody would obtain an e mail whether or not their place was being eradicated or not. Leshin stated JPL would provide “customized assist to our laid-off colleagues who’re a part of the workforce discount, together with providing devoted time to debate their advantages, and several other different types of help.”

This second spherical of layoffs weren’t a shock. Throughout a current city corridor with workers, Leshin mentioned the continued funding challenges and projections of what the potential affect on the JPL workforce may seem like. She indicated her staff had been working via a number of workforce eventualities to deal with the modifications in funding, with the objective of minimizing opposed results on JPL’s capabilities and staff. However regardless of their efforts, the conclusion was that this extra workforce discount was inevitable.

After the layoffs immediately, JPL might be left with about 5,500 common workers.

“These are painful however crucial changes that may allow us to stick to our finances whereas persevering with our essential work for NASA and our nation,” JPL stated in an announcement.

On social media, JPL workers known as the information “devastating,” and “terrible.” One other stated, “Can’t think about the stress this can produce.”

However Leshin additionally stated she believed this might be the final workforce discount wanted for the foreseeable future and that staffing ranges at this level are actually “steady and supportable.”

“Whereas we are able to by no means be 100% sure of the longer term finances, we might be nicely positioned for the work forward,” Leshin wrote. “This may occasionally not assist a lot on this troublesome second, however I do need to be crystal clear with my ideas and perspective. If we maintain sturdy collectively, we’ll come via this, simply as we’ve got accomplished throughout different turbulent occasions in JPL’s almost 90-year historical past.”

Dare Mighty Issues

JPL has a protracted and storied historical past — “Dare Mighty Issues” is the Lab’s motto — with the Lab’s origins relationship again to the Nineteen Thirties, when Caltech professor Theodore von Kármán oversaw pioneering work in rocket propulsion. Within the Nineteen Sixties, JPL started to develop robotic spacecraft to discover different worlds, starting with the Ranger and Surveyor missions to the Moon, rapidly adopted by Mariner missions to Mercury, Venus and Mars. Now, missions and devices constructed or managed by JPL have visited each planet in our Photo voltaic System in addition to learning the Solar. The long-lasting Voyager missions have now entered interstellar house.

Regardless of the troublesome layoffs, Leshin was longing for what’s to return for JPL.

“We’re an extremely sturdy group—our dazzling historical past, present achievements, and relentless dedication to exploration and discovery place us nicely for the longer term,” she wrote.