All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
JPL is operating under a hiring freeze and looking for additional ways to reduce spending.
Independent reviews identified a significant imbalance between workload and available resources at JPL.
JPL's layoffs occurred as uncertainties regarding MSR funding continued to unfold.
JPL Director Laurie Leshin noted that layoffs could happen depending on budget outcomes.
Affected employees at JPL will receive pay and benefits for 60 days.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced it would lay off 530 employees, or about 8% of its total workforce.
By early January, JPL decided to lay off 100 contractors primarily working on the MSR program.
Mars Sample Return (MSR) program uncertainty contributed to JPL's decision to lay off staff.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will lay off 530 employees, about 8% of its staff, effective 2024-02-06.
JPL laid off 100 contractors in January 2024, many of whom had been working on the Mars Sample Return program.
Laurie Leshin wrote in a 2024-02-06 memo that JPL implemented a hiring freeze, reductions in MSR contracts, earlier contractor layoffs, and other spending cuts before moving to workforce reductions.
Affected JPL employees were scheduled to be notified on 2024-02-07 after staff meetings, with most employees expected to work from home that day.
The 2023-10-01 appropriation period began on 2023-10-01 and Congress had not passed a final appropriations bill as of the 2024-02-06 JPL announcement.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory collaborated with Advanced Space to develop the one-way uplink measurement capability for CAPSTONE.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory donated the Ingenuity prototype to the National Air and Space Museum.
Carbon Mapper is supporting a campaign to fly JPL-developed hyperspectral sensors on Planet’s Tanager satellites.
JPL is providing NISAR’s radar reflector antenna, deployable boom, high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and the payload data subsystem.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, managed by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the NISAR project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR.
JPL has maintained a hiring freeze since September 2023.
The 100 contractors laid off by JPL were primarily working on the Mars Sample Return program, with a few working on other projects that were finishing up.