14 DAY TRIAL // Experts working for the American space agency and its contractors have known for many years that the Space Shuttle Program was scheduled to shutdown this year. Current plans call for the three remaining orbiters to be grounded starting at the end of this year, but some believe that the last launch will take place in February 2011. As the deadline approaches, representatives from the United Space Alliance (USA), a major shuttle contractor, announce that they have just issues 1,349 layoff notices this week, which will start taking effect starting October 1.
USA is a partnership created by the Boeing Corporation and Lockheed Martin, and is based in Houston. The company has been handling most aspects related to the space shuttles for the past 15 years, and it has workers spread out throughout the United States. Of its 8,100 workforce, some 15 percent are affected by the new cuts. Most notices were sent to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The facility is the home port of Atlantis, Endeavor and Discovery, Space reports.
“Our workforce has known for several years that the Space Shuttle Program has been scheduled to end, but layoffs are always difficult for everyone involved. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible,” says the president and chief executive of USA, Virginia Barnes. She added in the same July 6 statement that 902 KSC workers will be let go, in addition to 478 scientists from Mission Control, in Texas, and 14 employees from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, in Alabama. According to Kari Fluegel, a spokesperson for USA, about 33 percent of the people who got layoff notices nominated themselves for the measure.
Speaking about the possibility of a new space shuttle mission being programmed for the summer of 2011, Fluegel said that this would affect the layoff schedule USA prepared for next year. “This plan wouldn't be affected at all, but it would affect the timing, obviously, of when we would do layoffs, and how we'd do layoffs, next year,” the representative explains, adding that the notices which take effect on October 1 will not be influenced by such as decision. Congress is currently weighing the pros and cons associated with a new shuttle launch, and a clear decision is pending.