For many years, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, has led the world in robotic space exploration. When the U.S. has despatched rovers to Mars, or probes to the farthest reaches of the solar system, you’ll be able to make certain that JPL scientists had a hand in constructing the craft and/ or working them. Now … an indication of the occasions? Late yesterday (February 6, 2024), JPL’s director Laurie Leshin introduced in a memo that the NASA facility will lay off lots of of workers this week. The cuts are coming in anticipation of huge funding cuts within the subsequent federal finances, particularly associated to the proposed Mars Sample Return mission.
This week, JPL will probably be letting go of 530 workers – roughly 8% of its workforce – and 40 extra contractors, Leshin mentioned.
Mars Pattern Return finances slashed
That is JPL’s second spherical of layoffs for the reason that begin of 2024. The Los Angeles Occasions reported:
In January, 100 on-site contractors misplaced their jobs after NASA directed the lab to cut back spending in anticipation of extreme finances cuts for the Mars Pattern Return mission, an formidable effort managed by JPL that might deliver items of the crimson planet again to Earth for research …
Although Congress has not but finalized appropriations for subsequent 12 months, NASA has instructed JPL to organize for a federal finances that would cap Mars Pattern Return spending within the 2024 fiscal 12 months at $300 million, 36% of the earlier 12 months’s $822-million finances allocation and fewer than 1/3 of the $949 million the Biden administration has requested for this system.
NASA administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned in a press release:
To spend greater than that quantity, with no remaining laws in place, could be unwise and spending cash NASA doesn’t have.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory missions
JPL has many NASA applications underway, together with the Europa Clipper mission scheduled for launch in October 2024. However, according to SpacePolicyOnline.com, the $8-11 billion Mars Pattern Return (MSR) mission is a core component of the longer term:
MSR is popping out to be considerably costlier than anticipated. The highest precedence of the 2 most up-to-date planetary science Decadal Surveys from the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Drugs, the NASA-ESA MSR program would deliver again to Earth the samples being collected on Mars proper now by the Perseverance rover. The 2022 Decadal Survey estimated the price at $5.3 billion, however an unbiased evaluate final fall mentioned it extra probably could be $8-11 billion.
A shift in emphasis?
I recall within the late Nineteen Seventies, not lengthy after the top of the Apollo missions that despatched people to the moon, when astronomers had been debating the relative deserves of human spaceflight versus robotic planetary exploration. Policymakers fashioned committees and arguments had been heard on either side. In the end it was determined to focus the U.S. space program not on human spaceflight, however on the robotic exploration of the planets. And discover them now we have! It has been an excellent time to be a space fanatic.
In the meantime, the human space program – the concept of sending people to the moon or Mars, for instance – languished. We didn’t notice again then that it might languish for some 50 years … basically our entire grownup lives!
And now people are headed again to the moon with NASA’s Artemis program. It’s onerous to not surprise the place the winds of change will take us subsequent …
Backside line: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – for many years a frontrunner in robotic exploration of the planets in our solar system – will reduce 8% of its workforce this week.
