Boeing informed its Space Launch System ( SLS ) team of potential layoffs , a troubling sign that NASA ’s Moon Eruca sativa may be at risk after massive cost overproduction and schedule delays . And also Trump .
The party is expecting close to 400 few positions by April 2025 “ to align with revisions to the Artemis programme and cost expectations , ” Boeing told Gizmodo in an electronic mail . “ We are shape with our client and search opportunities to redeploy employee across our society to minimize occupation losses and hold our gifted mate . ”
The 5.75 - million - pound sodium lauryl sulphate rocket , powered by a Boeing - built core stage , is essential to NASA ’s Artemis Moon program . SLS found on November 16 , 2022for the Artemis 1 mission , sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft around the Moon and back . The rocket is due to set in motion a survey - up commission , Artemis 2 , in April 2026 , with a crew on instrument panel Orion , and the first crewed Moon landing since Apollo , Artemis 3 , sometime in 2027 .
NASA’s SLS rocket fitted with the Orion spacecraft ahead of the Artemis 1 launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.NASA/Joel Kowsky
NASA ’s massive Moon rocket , however , has become a budgeting nightmare . NASA ’s Office of the Inspector General ( OIG)performed an audit from February 2022 through April 2023 , finding that the space agency ’s overall investment in itsArtemis Moon programis picture to reach $ 93 billion from 2012 through 2025 , of which the price of SLS alone represent $ 23.8 billion spend through 2022 . That ’s $ 6 billion in cost increases for the rocket , in summation to six years in schedule delays above NASA ’s original projections , the report say .
Another OIGreportreleased in August 2024 criticized “ Boeing ’s ineffective quality management and inexperienced workforce , continued monetary value increases and schedule delay , and the delay establishment of a monetary value and agenda baseline , ” regarding the SLS rocket ’s Exploration Upper Stage . The upper microscope stage was schedule to be delivered to NASA in early 2021 but its development is now projected to be over no earlier than 2027 .
The current administration does not seem to be a fan of the Artemis program either . “ The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient , as it is a jobs - maximize programme , not a event - maximize platform , ” SpaceX CEO and beginner Elon Musk , who is a tight advisor to President Donald Trump , recentlywroteon X. “ Something entirely new is require . ”
During his inauguration speech , Trump did n’t name the Moon , but instead spoke of “ launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars . ” Musk also has his eye on Mars , hoping to set down SpaceX ’s megarocket Starship on the surface of the Red Planet by 2026 . That would put Starship years in advance of NASA ’s design to use the Moon as a testbed for landing astronauts on Mars sometime in the 2030s .
count on where you fend on SLS , Boeing ’s potential layoff are either a worrying or welcome sign of where NASA ’s massive skyrocket stand after just one head trip to the Moon .
ArtemisNASASLSthe moon
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