NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory laying off hundreds, citing budget gridlock

The congressional budget gridlock has led NASA to lay off hundreds of workers in its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which has launched numerous missions to Mars to search for signs of life.

The JPL, which is managed by the California Institute of Technology, is NASA’s “only federally-funded research and development center,” according to its website. It announced Tuesday that its center would undergo mass layoffs, cutting a lower budget from NASA and appropriations approved by Congress.

“After exhausting all other measures to adjust to a lower budget from NASA, and in the absence of an [fiscal 2024] appropriation from Congress, we have had to make the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs,” the statement reads.

The announcement said about 530 of its employees — roughly 8 percent of the workforce — would be laid off. Another 40 contractors who work for the center will also be included, the announcement stated.

The JPL said the laboratory had no “final word” from Congress on its “Mars Sample Return” mission, which would return samples from the surface on Mars to Earth. According to its website, those samples could answer questions on whether life existed on Mars.

The center already launched rovers to Mars to collect the samples, but it still needs a way of getting those samples home. The NASA Independent Review Board report said returning the samples to Earth could cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, per The Washington Post.

JPL Director Laurie Leshin told employees in a memo Tuesday the laboratory already began cost-cutting measures after NASA directed the lab to plan a $300 million budget for the Mars Sample Return mission without hearing from Congress.

“Unfortunately, those actions alone are not enough for us to make it through the remainder of the fiscal year,” Leshin wrote in the memo. “So in the absence of an appropriation, and as much as we wish we didn’t need to take this action, we must now move forward to protect against even deeper cuts later were we to wait.”

She then explained the JPL will reduce its workforce “in both technical and support areas of the Lab, and across different organizations” while still ensuring it can deliver on its missions, including the Mars mission.

Employees affected by the layoffs should have been notified Wednesday, according to Leshin.