Boeing has notified employees of possible layoffs due to potential changes in NASA’s Artemis program, a flagship initiative to extend human and commercial space operations from low Earth orbit into cislunar space and the Moon’s surface.

Boeing is NASA’s primary contractor for the Space Launch System (SLS), a human-rated heavy-lift rocket for deep-space travel.

“To align with revisions to the Artemis program and cost expectations, we informed our Space Launch Systems team of the potential for approximately 400 fewer positions by April 2025,” Boeing said in a statement on Feb. 7.

“This will require 60-day notices of involuntary layoff be issued to impacted employees in coming weeks, in accordance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. We are working with our customer and seeking opportunities to redeploy employees across our company to minimize job losses and retain our talented teammates,” Boeing said.

The SLS debuted on Nov. 16, 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft on a flight test around the Moon on the Artemis I mission. The second SLS launch on Artemis II, with a crewed Orion capsule, is currently slated to launch in April 2026. Artemis III, targeted for late 2027, features the first in a series of missions to land crews near the lunar south polar region.