Sierra Space, a leading private company in the space sector, has recently laid off several hundred employees and contractors, as reported by CNBC. A Sierra Space spokesperson confirmed that approximately 165 employees were let go, but did not disclose the number of contractors affected. Former employees revealed that the layoffs included a significant number of contractors, resulting in a total reduction of hundreds of personnel.
The laid-off employees were provided with two weeks of paid non-working notice, along with four weeks of severance pay and health care benefits until the end of the year. Prior to the layoffs, Sierra Space had approximately 2,000 employees.
The Colorado-based company, which was recently valued at over $5 billion, is intensely focused on the upcoming first mission of its Dream Chaser spaceplane. This week, the company shipped the first Dream Chaser, named Tenacity, for pre-launch testing at NASA’s Armstrong facility in Ohio. The layoffs followed soon after, with a surge in hiring earlier in the year to complete work on the Tenacity spacecraft.
In light of the upcoming mission, Sierra Space is realigning its efforts to concentrate on the operations phase of Dream Chaser’s first mission, as well as on classified national security work. As part of this realignment, the company is adding nearly 150 employees with security clearances from Sierra Nevada Corp., which the space company was spun out from two years ago. Sierra Space aims to create a national security space team to work on classified contracts.
The company also recently experienced the departure of two senior executives, COO Jeff Babione and Senior Vice President of Space Destinations Neeraj Gupta, and raised just under $300 million at a $5.3 billion valuation two months ago.
Dream Chaser, which has been in development for years, is designed to deliver cargo and eventually crew to low Earth orbit as a reusable vehicle. Its first launch had been scheduled for late last year, but was delayed due to issues with the development of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket. The first launch of Dream Chaser is now planned to coincide with ULA’s second Vulcan mission.
Dream Chaser has secured contracts from NASA to fly seven cargo missions to and from the International Space Station. Subscribe here to receive weekly editions of CNBC’s Investing in Space newsletter.
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