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NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is laying off about 5% of its workforce on Wednesday. That's 325 jobs lost, on top of the 530 cut in February. The lab, which is responsible for developing robotic space probes, has faced a number of challenges this year, including a pause in some funding. The cuts are hitting "essentially all areas of the Lab," Director Laurie Leshin wrote in a memo to staff. In recent years, JPL has seen increased competition from a number of private companies, including SpaceX and Lockheed Martin.

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Kevin Watson Principal Engineer, Flight Computing at The Exploration Company

JPL is having another large round of layoffs this week. I spent the first twenty-three years of my career there and it was a pretty amazing experience. However, times have changed and finding the budget for a $2B Mars rover is going to be hard when SpaceX can do it for $200M. NASA needs to adapt and work on cutting-edge projects that industry can't or won't do. I left JPL in 2008 for SpaceX and haven't looked back. The job market is pretty hot in the Los Angeles area and hopefully those that lost their job can find a fun job elsewhere.

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Rapier108 said:

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SpaceX should have no effect on JPL, which builds and handle the probes and rovers.

The only launch vehicle NASA even has is the SLS. Every other US launch vehicle is by either SpaceX, ULA, Northrop Grumman, or Blue Origin, assuming the latter ever actually flies. (Yes, there are some other start ups, but as of right now, they don't matter.)

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