NASA contractor laying off 550 engineers, others

SALT LAKE CITY — The phase-out of the space shuttle program brought 550 layoffs on Tuesday to a Utah company that makes the booster rockets.

ATK Space Systems said it was handing out pink slips to engineers, factory workers and others at three Utah locations.

The company, a business unit of Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems Inc., is developing NASA’s powerful moon rocket as a replacement for the space shuttle. But funding for that program is uncertain, and the initial work isn’t enough to maintain a full work force.

The layoffs will leave ATK Space Systems with around 3,900 employees at its Clearfield headquarters, a factory in Magna and a test facility in Promontory.

The company alerted workers to plans for the reductions in July. More than 130 of the employees voluntarily accepted a layoff. Along with others, they will get a severance package of up to a half-year’s wages.

Some of the layoffs were blamed on the end of production for the government’s Minuteman III ballistic missile program.

Despite the cutbacks, the company believes it has a secure future in aerospace work and said it was working to secure more defense or NASA contract work.

ATK successfully test fired NASA’s powerful moon rocket last month in Promontory, 65 miles north of Salt Lake City. A first attempt in August was scrubbed because of problems with a computer component on the ground test system.

The Ares I has been a centerpiece of NASA’s $100 billion return to the moon plans, first suggested by President George W. Bush in 2004. The idea was that the Ares I would take the Orion crew capsule to the international space station in Earth orbit and then to the moon, with the big equipment coming from a heavy lift rocket, still to be built, called Ares V.

But after money problems, delays, and technical issues, President Barack Obama appointed a special outside panel of experts to review NASA’s future space plans. The committee’s preliminary summary, issued last month, said there wasn’t enough money in the current budget to go to the moon and also suggested that the Ares I may not be the best option.

Still, NASA plans to permanently retire the space shuttles by the end of next year, when construction of the international space station is finished.

“We’re making major progress on Ares,” ATK spokesman George Torres said Tuesday.

“We’ll have a flight test Oct. 27 at Kennedy Space Center. Just like the ground test, it’s the culmination of four years of progress on this next generation of launch vehicles. So we’re hitting our milestones and proving the capacity of Areas,” he said.

NASA officials have said the first manned flight of the Orion craft to the space station could take place in 2015.

ATK is making the first-stage rocket booster in Utah for the Orion, which is a capsule being manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Boeing Co. is making a second-stage, liquid-fueled rocket. ATK’s rocket is called the Ares 1.

The whole craft and missions takes the name Constellation program.

But for now, Orion is only a promise of more work for ATK Space Systems.

The company said its severance package includes up to 26 weeks of pay with health insurance through November, when workers can elect to continue the benefits by picking up the company’s premiums. In addition, ATK plans to hold a job fair Oct. 21 that will draw a dozen Utah companies looking for skilled workers.