By Mary O’KEEFE

The February layoffs at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) were a hit to the science community and the local area as hundreds were laid off from the Lab and many other outside contracts were canceled. Congressional representatives warned against the layoffs as a knee jerk reaction to budget cuts but that did not deter NASA from moving forward with laying off 530 people at JPL.

The 2024 Congressional approved budget was about a half a billion dollars less than NASA was budgeted in 2023. This decrease meant that something at JPL had to take a hit and that something was Mars exploration, specifically the Mars Sample Return mission. NASA had to cover the $509 million gap in spending and turned to JPL.

Since its conception the Mars Sample Return mission has been ambitious. A “Dare Mighty Things” type of project – something JPL is known for around the world. But the reality was that NASA had to cut the budget somewhere. JPL is NASA’s federally funded research and development center. However, employees of JPL are actually paid through Caltech.

The Mars Sample Return is a mission in which the Mars Sample Return rover would land in Jezero Crater near the Perseverance rover’s landing site. Perseverance has already been collecting samples from specifically selected areas of Mars, including collecting samples from areas it drilled below the planet’s surface. These samples are collected by a robot then placed onto a Mars ascent rocket. The plan is for the Mars ascent rocket to blast off the surface of Mars and rendezvous with an orbiter that would bring it back to Earth.

Representatives, including Judy Chu, Adam Schiff and Mike Garcia, have been making their concerns known about the February layoffs.

“I’m extremely disappointed with the impending JPL layoffs announced, and my thoughts are with the workers who will be impacted and their families. These cuts will devastate workers and Southern California in the short-term, and they hurt the long-term viability of not just our Mars Exploration Program but also many years of scientific discovery to come,” Chu said in a statement regarding the February layoffs. “I’m not done, however, helping lead the fight with my California colleagues in Congress to reverse NASA’s premature and misguided budget cuts to the Mars Sample Return Mission. I’m hopeful in the coming weeks we can work to broker a deal with the Administration and Congress to restore funding to the levels necessary to rehire workers and promote the kinds of scientific discovery JPL has been on the frontlines of for decades.”

But other concerns surround more layoffs that may be in JPL’s future.

“That’s why the members of the California delegation [Chu, Schiff and Garcia] are still fighting to have sufficient funds for the 2025 process, which is still in play,” said Representative Judy Chu.

The Biden Administration requested $25.4 billion for NASA in the budget for fiscal year 2025. That is an increase of $508.7 million over fiscal year 2024.

The budget has yet to be voted on but the House and Senate appropriation committees are discussing the budget proposals.

These meetings are what need to be concentrated on, Chu said.

In April, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and associate administrator for NASA Science Mission Directorate Dr. Nicola Fox shared the path forward for the Mars Sample Return Program, which included going outside JPL to find innovative designs. Other agencies have been working on the Mars Sample Return Program including the European Space Agency. Nelson and Fox did state that if JPL had an innovative plan they would look at that as well.

According to a press release on June 7, “NASA is moving forward with 10 studies to examine more affordable and faster methods of bringing samples from Mars’ surface back to Earth as part of the agency’s Mars Sample Return Program. As part of this effort, NASA will award a firm-fixed-price contract for up to $1.5 million to conduct 90-day studies to seven industry proposers. …Additionally, NASA centers, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory are producing studies. Once completed, NASA will assess all studies to consider alterations or enhancements to the Mars Sample Return architecture.”

There have been reports that Boeing had also applied, according an article on May 17 with space.com: “Boeing has put forward its own idea to help NASA get its Mars Sample Return project back on track and on budget.”

However, in a June NASA release only seven companies were listed including Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Aerojet Rocketdyne in Huntsville, Alabama, Blue Origin in Kent, Washington, Quantum Space in Rockville, Maryland and Whittinghill Aerospace in Camarillo, California.

However, the chance of future layoffs at JPL continues to be a concern.

“There is a chance that JPL could be the one selected for this proposal that should come forth in October,” Chu said. “And I think we have to see what happens with the 2025 budget. I do have to express this, though: I’m concerned that the Mars Sample Project is absorbing almost the entire share of NASA funding reductions and that’s not fair.”

As stated in the June 6 CVW article, “JPL: Is the Past Repeating Itself?” a short history of JPL included that of founding member Qian Xuesen, who was kicked out of the country during the “Red Scare” in the 1950s. This scientist then went to China, the land of his birth, where he started the Chinese space program. China is still active with its space program and, in fact, has plans to land a human on the Moon. It too has its own version of the Mars Sample Return Program.

When asked about the JPL layoffs, those past and those possibly in the future, and where those scientists and engineers will find work, Chu said that was a concern.

“What I’m really concerned [about] is [scientists/engineers] have probably a minimum of two decades worth of experience with Mars Sample Return project. That’s so much expertise and knowledge that is lost because they were laid off, and that is going to hurt JPL for sure – but it will hurt our scientific endeavor as a whole,” Chu said.