Boeing Warns of Potential Layoffs Ahead of NASA’s Moon Rocket Challenges

NASA’s Moon Rocket Faces Uncertain Future

Boeing has informed its Space Launch System (SLS) team of potential layoffs, a concerning sign that NASA’s Moon rocket may be at risk due to significant cost overruns and schedule delays. This news has also been met with skepticism from Donald Trump, who has expressed interest in pursuing a lunar mission to Mars.

Massive Cost Overruns and Schedule Delays

The company expects approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025 "to align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations," Boeing told Gizmodo in an email. Boeing is working with NASA to redeploy employees across the company to minimize job losses and retain its talented teammates.

The Artemis Moon Program

The 5.75-million-pound SLS rocket, powered by a Boeing-built core stage, is crucial to NASA’s Artemis Moon program. On November 16, 2022, the rocket launched on the Artemis 1 mission, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back. The rocket is due to launch a follow-up mission, Artemis 2, in April 2026, with a crew on board Orion, and the first crewed Moon landing since Apollo, Artemis 3, sometime in 2027.

Budgeting Nightmare

NASA’s massive Moon rocket has become a budgeting nightmare. An Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit from February 2022 through April 2023 found that the space agency’s overall investment in its Artemis Moon program is projected to reach $93 billion from 2012 through 2025, with the costs of SLS alone representing $23.8 billion spent through 2022. This has resulted in $6 billion in cost increases for the rocket, in addition to six years of schedule delays above NASA’s original projections.

Boeing’s Quality Management and Workforce Concerns

Another OIG report released in August 2024 criticized Boeing’s ineffective quality management and inexperienced workforce, continued cost increases, and schedule delays, regarding the SLS rocket’s Exploration Upper Stage. The upper stage was scheduled to be delivered to NASA in early 2021 but its development is now projected to be complete no earlier than 2027.

The Future of the Artemis Program

The current administration does not seem to be a fan of the Artemis program. "The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program," SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk, who is a close advisor to President Donald Trump, recently wrote on X. "Something entirely new is needed."

Mars and the Future of Space Exploration

During his inauguration speech, Trump didn’t mention the Moon, but instead spoke of "launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars." Musk also has his eyes on Mars, hoping to land SpaceX’s megarocket Starship on the surface of the Red Planet by 2026. This would put Starship years ahead of NASA’s plan to use the Moon as a testbed for landing astronauts on Mars sometime in the 2030s.

Uncertainty Surrounds the SLS Program

Depending on where you stand on SLS, Boeing’s potential layoffs are either a worrying or welcome sign of where NASA’s massive rocket stands after just one trip to the Moon.