Due to federal budget cuts, the National Aeronautics and Space Association announced layoffs that will affect thousands of workers in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is located at NASA’s La Cañada Flintridge research institution. 530 workers will lose their jobs, and the cuts will reduce NASA’s total workforce by around eight percent. The federal budget changes cut funding for the Mars Sample Return mission that is run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The cuts will reduce the funding for the mission by over one-third, and the mission will receive $300 million in funding this year, compared to the $822 million in funding in 2023. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory already conducted one round of layoffs in 2024, and a hundred employees lost their jobs during these cuts.
See "Hundreds of NASA employees working in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be affected by layoffs", Corinne Purtill, Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2024