Shuttle retirement: United Space Alliance to lose 50 percent of workforce

by Steven Mostyn - Apr 18 2011, 13:37

There may be museums across the U.S. currently in celebration after securing NASA’s space shuttles as moneymaking tourist attractions, but not everyone is smiling about the fleet’s imminent retirement from service.

Case in point, NASA contractor United Space Alliance (USA) has announced it will be forced to cut up to 2,800 jobs (around 50 percent of its workforce) once day-to-day operations surrounding the space shuttles comes to an end.

And, with the final shuttle mission (aboard Atlantis) due to blast towards the orbiting International Space Station on June 28, that mass cull is likely to take place towards the end of the summer.

“The accomplishments of this team are unmatched in human spaceflight,” commented USA president and CEO Virginia Barnes in a Space.com report.

“It will be difficult to say goodbye to such tremendously talented and dedicated teammates, and we are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for them,” she added.

According to USA, the looming job losses will affect three of its core sites at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and also at NASA centers in Texas and Alabama.

By way of support for its USA colleagues, NASA has said it is also attempting to transition workers into related areas of expertise by pointing them towards workforce centers and job fairs, and offering services such as resume development and interview training.

Late last week, NASA announced that its three surviving shuttle orbiters will be officially relocated to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (Atlantis), the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Virginia (Discovery), and the California Space Center in Los Angeles (Endeavour).

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