By Scott Hamilton
March 11, 2025, © Leeham News: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the latest federal government agency to come into Elon Musk’s sights for major cost cutting, and a union representing about 1,000 probationary employees is worried about the impact that massive layoffs on the agency might have on aerospace research and development.
Musk is a special representative of President Donald Trump. He heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has wreaked havoc throughout federal government departments, slashing jobs and programs. NASA (which contracts with Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing, a Musk competitor) announced that it is cutting the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, the Office of the Chief Scientist, and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity.
NASA provides funding and research support to Boeing and other aerospace companies in the commercial aviation, defense, and space sectors. Airbus, Boeing’s prime competitor, has also benefited from NASA research.
Currently, Boeing’s highest-profile projects with NASA are its SLS space booster, the Starliner crew capsule, and the X-66A Transonic Trussed Brace Wing (TTBW) research project for a new commercial airliner.
The SLS and Starliner projects are years behind schedule, billions of dollars over budget and fraught with technical problems. SpaceX competes with both space projects. Boeing previously warned that about 400 employees associated with the SLS could lose their jobs if NASA cancels this program.
For now, Boeing is proceeding with the X-66A research, the company says
TTBW
Concept of the Boeing-NASA X-66A demonstrator now under development. Credit: NASA.
“There has been no change to the Boeing R&D expenditures for the X-66 program, and the program remains on track,” a spokesperson told LNA last Friday. “The X-66 model just successfully completed its first two wind tunnel tests.”
The X-66 is a former Delta Air Lines Boeing MD-90 being converted to a high-wing configuration as a proof-of-concept high aspect wing ratio design that can potentially significantly reduce fuel consumption. Lower fuel consumption also benefits emissions.
The first flight of the X-66 is targeted for 2028.
Boeing has a long history of collaborating with NASA. It has:
- Focused on high-rate, composite manufacturing demonstrations in which co-investments mature these technologies for lighter weight, affordable structures;
- Co-sponsored Common Research Models to advance aerodynamic design capabilities; and
- Engaged in multi-year emissions testing with the Boeing ecoDemonstrator program to understand how advanced fuels, engine combustor designs and other technologies may reduce atmospheric warming. The data analysis of that research is ongoing.
GE Aerospace is using a NASA supercomputer to develop the RISE Open Fan engine. GE claims this engine will reduce fuel consumption by 20% after installation on a new airplane, which could be a TTBW or a conventionally designed aircraft. GE says the RISE will be ready to enter service in 2035.
Airbus has benefitted from NASA research in the past, but it did not respond to an inquiry about current programs from which it may benefit.
Union denounces layoffs, office closures
The union that represents about 1,000 probationary workers across NASA, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) who are at risk of losing their jobs denounced the office closures and layoffs.
Probationary employees aren’t necessarily new hires. Under federal government rules, a long-time employee who accepts a new job within the agency is considered probationary for the first year, no matter how long the person was employed by the agency before the transfer.
“We had a fairly strong sense that we were going to see mass terminations of probationary employees, as we’ve seen at other federal agencies, happening at NASA,” a union official told LNA last Friday.
“[NASA] is doing their best to retain their workforce. We suspect that the acting agency leadership understands the need for workforce succession planning. If you lose that, you’re potentially losing just expertise that will have to be replaced.”
IFPTE said that many of these have advanced degrees, some of whom have spent a decade or longer working on NASA-related projects or building their skill sets.
“Or they’re people that have basically just transferred from being a contractor and then being hired onto NASA as a civil servant or simply just taken a promotion within NASA and then the probationary period starts again,” the union official said. “There’s a lot of incredibly experienced people that are in that pool of probationary employees just happen to be new to that position.”
NASA is a place where they can do engineering and science and research that they can’t do in many other places, such as academia or the private sector, the union official said.
“Despite what NASA’s current leadership claims, make no mistake that this was not a decision made by NASA; it was made by the lawless and rouge DOGE,” the union said in a statement yesterday.
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