Boeing is preparing to issue layoff notices to roughly 200 employees working on the Space Launch System (SLS) — the massive rocket central to NASA’s flagship Artemis program — as it braces for the possibility that its contracts with the space agency may not be renewed after they end in March.
Of the approximately 400 positions Boeing initially considered cutting by April “to align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations,” the company managed to preserve half of the jobs after daily talks with NASA, Boeing’s Vice President and program manager for the SLS rocket, David Dutcher, notified employees in an email last week, according to Bloomberg.
The news of layoffs, first reported by Ars Technica on Feb. 7, comes as six space industry representatives advising President Donald Trump and Elon Musk say they want the duo to cancel the SLS program — or at least phase it out over several years, Reuters reported on Wednesday (Feb. 12).
The development of SLS, for which Boeing is the primary contractor, has cost $23.8 billion between its inception in 2011 and its first Artemis test flight that occurred in late 2022. The megarocket is neither reusable nor inexpensive: it can launch only once every two years and costs an estimated $4.1 billion per launch, making it effectively unaffordable for future Artemis missions.
Critics often argue Musk’s SpaceX could accomplish missions to the moon at lower costs with its reusable Starship vehicle, which is undergoing test flights in preparation for the Artemis 3 crewed mission, currently scheduled for 2027. Historically, however, SLS and Orion spacecraft development has received substantial funding from a broad coalition; the program supports more than 69,000 jobs nationwide as of 2019.
But critics contends that the rocket’s costs and slow pace of development mean it should go the way of the space shuttle. “Regarding space, the Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Dec. 25. “Something entirely new is needed.”
NASA itself has not yet officially noted any changes to its Artemis program. At the SpaceCom conference in Florida last month, Kirk Shireman, who is the Orion program manager at Lockheed Martin, said NASA’s current approach to Artemis remains effective despite criticism regarding costs and delays, according to a report by SpaceNews.
“What we need to do is tell the people in the new administration and anyone we can talk to this about is, hey, the fastest way to get humans back on the moon is to stay the course,” Shireman said, according to SpaceNews.
“Things take a long time to build and certify and, if you throw them away every four years and start over, that’s probably the slowest and most expensive thing we could do.”
