NEW ORLEANS — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory laid off 100 contractors last week because of potential sharp budget cuts to the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program and warned that more layoffs could come.
A JPL spokesperson confirmed Jan. 7 that the center laid off the contractors and took other measures, such as across-the-board spending cuts and pausing work on one aspect of MSR, because of the “uncertain federal budget” in fiscal year 2024. The Los Angeles Times first reported the layoffs.
NASA announced in November that it would slow down work on MSR because of sharp differences in proposed funding for the effort in separate House and Senate bills. A House appropriations bill would provide the agency’s full request of $949.3 million while the Senate version allocated only $300 million.
NASA is operating under a continuing resolution (CR) until Feb. 2 that funds the agency at 2023 levels, which for MSR is $822.3 million. Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator for science at NASA, said at an advisory committee meeting in November that slowing down work on MSR was needed to avoid a “worst-case scenario” of spending at 2023 levels for several months but getting only the $300 million in the Senate bill for the program.
“We got direction from NASA to plan for the lower level and we’re doing that systematically,” Laurie Leshin, director of JPL, said in an interview Jan. 8 during the 243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society here. “So, the first thing to happen is to look at where we’re using on-site contractors on MSR, but other places as well, where JPLers could backfill for that.”
Those contractors, she explained, are used as a “surge capacity” where needed on specific programs. Those contractors were primarily working on MSR but in a few cases on other projects that she said were finishing up already.
In addition to the contractor layoffs, JPL has had a hiring freeze in place since September….
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