David Dutcher, the Vice Chairman of Boeing and head of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket program, which is used to send spacecraft to the moon in NASA’s Artemis project, called a meeting with around 800 employees working under this project. The purpose was to alert them to the possibility that NASA’s project might be canceled during the Trump administration.
Within the Artemis project, NASA has assigned different parts of the work to various aerospace companies, such as the Orion spacecraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin in collaboration with Airbus, and the Human Landing System (HLS) spacecraft selected by SpaceX and Blue Origin to divide the missions among them. Boeing is responsible for the SLS rocket, which launches various components beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
However, due to delays in the project (started in 2011, originally aimed for launch in 2016, and eventually launched in 2022) combined with political changes in the United States, Boeing is concerned that the Trump administration may cancel the SLS project (and possibly switch to using SpaceX’s rockets, which are more closely aligned with Trump).
If the US government decides to cancel the SLS project as speculated, the official announcement is expected to come in March 2025 as part of the annual budget proposal. Boeing anticipates having to lay off approximately 400 employees from this project.
Source: Ars Technica, Image from Boeing
TLDR: David Dutcher of Boeing warned employees of the possibility of NASA canceling the SLS rocket project under the Trump administration, which could lead to employee layoffs.
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