Research & Developments is a blog for brief updates that provide context for the flurry of news regarding law and policy changes that impact science and scientists today.
Today, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., laid off 550 people, a roughly 11% reduction of its workforce.
“This week’s action, while not easy, is essential to securing JPL’s future by creating a leaner infrastructure, focusing on our core technical capabilities, maintaining fiscal discipline and positioning us to compete in the evolving space ecosystem,” JPL director Dave Gallagher wrote in a brief statement released on 13 October. Layoffs were spread across the technical, business, and support areas.
Gallagher said that this workforce reduction is part of a reorganization that began in July and is not related to the current government shutdown that began on 1 October. A 10 October court filing by the White House Office of Management and Budget did not include NASA among the agencies targeted for layoffs by the Trump administration during the ongoing shutdown, reported Space News.
Related
• Read the statement from JPL Director Dave Gallagher
• JPL announces that hundreds of employees will be laid off Tuesday
• Whistleblower report: “The Destruction of NASA’s Mission”
• Get Involved: AGU Science Policy Action Center
JPL is a research and development laboratory federally funded by NASA. While the current government shutdown continues, NASA has been directed to operate and plan as if the appropriations bill passed by the House of Representative is in effect, which would fund NASA (and most JPL projects) at nearly the same level as the current fiscal year.
Federal whistleblowers, however, have come forward with evidence that NASA leadership has been operating as if the President’s Budget Request (PBR)—not the appropriations bill—is in effect, directing mission wind-down operations and staff reductions under the assumption of a 20% overall budget cut. Some of that lost spending would affect JPL’s ability to plan, build, and operate Earth science missions and space exploration spacecraft.
Despite vocal support from the Trump administration and NASA leadership about putting humans on the Moon again and eventually on Mars, the PBR would also cancel the Mars Sample Return program, which would pick up and return to Earth sample capsules collected and deposited by the Perseverance rover. Analysis of those samples would provide critical support to any future human exploration mission to Mars.
Kevin Hicks, a systems engineer who formerly operated rovers at JPL, said that Perseverance’s budget is being reduced by two-thirds, “just enough to technically keep it going and not get the full PR backlash of canceling a working rover,” he wrote.
This is the fourth round of layoffs at JPL since the beginning of 2024, including an 8% reduction in staff that affected mostly engineering-related positions. The mood among current and former JPL employees is grim. Several people commented on a JPL Reddit forum that they expect more layoffs in the future.
“Today was very somber on lab. It felt like everyone [was] grieving,” one Redditor wrote on 13 October. Several other posters echoed that sentiment. “We tried to keep a positive, but realistic attitude and we even took a final group photo in front of the JPL concrete logo. However, there’s no whitewashing the ‘doomsday-eve’ feeling that’s looming over all our heads.”
—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer
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