“This reduction is spread across virtually all areas of the Lab, including our technical, project, business and support areas,” Leshin wrote. “We have taken seriously the need to once again increase our workforce, whether through direct funding (project) or overhead funding (charges). With lower budgets and based on the forecast work ahead, we have had to tighten our belts across the board, and you will see that reflected in the consequences of the redundancies.”
This year's staff cuts came after NASA decided to consider alternatives to a multibillion-dollar plan to return samples from Mars to Earth, which was led by JPL. In September 2023, an independent review team found that the JPL plan was unworkable and would cost $8 billion to $11 billion to be successful.
A changing environment
While NASA considers alternatives from other field centers, as well as from private companies such as SpaceX and Rocket Lab, the budget for Mars Sample Return was reduced from nearly $1 billion for this fiscal year to less than $300 million. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that JPL will be in charge of a renewed Mars Sample Return mission.
The staff cuts reflect the fact that JPL is not currently leading another orbital flagship in space following the recent launch of the $5 billion Europa Clipper mission. Another major mission, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, is almost ready for launch from India next year. The California laboratory has smaller projects, but nothing in the sense of a flagship mission to have a large budget and support a very large staff.
JPL has a long and storied history, including managing most of NASA's best-known planetary probes, including the Voyagers, Mars landers and Galileo and Cassini spacecraft. In recent years, however, other space centers, such as the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and private companies such as Lockheed have competed for projects and delivered results.
The job of Leshin and others at NASA is to ensure that JPL has a bright future in a changing world of planetary exploration. This week's cuts will ensure such a future, Leshin wrote, adding: “We are an incredibly strong organization – our stellar history, current achievements and relentless commitment to exploration and discovery position us well for the future.”
