Second Kennedy Space Center Contractor Plans Layoffs as NASA Brings Work In-House

A second Kennedy Space Center contractor is cutting jobs as NASA pulls work back from private companies and hands it to federal employees. Aetos Systems, an IT and engineering services firm that works as a subcontractor to Leidos, filed a Florida WARN notice on Oct. 16 saying it expects to lay off up to 126 workers at the Space Coast spaceport, according to WKMG News 6, which reviewed the filing.

The notice follows a Sept. 25 filing by Amentum, the largest contractor at Kennedy, that eliminates 70 positions on Nov. 30. Both companies tied the cuts to the same cause: NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman's push to insource work the agency now considers a core competency. Together, the two notices put nearly 200 Brevard County contractor jobs in play before the end of the year, although some of those workers are expected to land on NASA's own payroll.

What Aetos told the state

Aetos, which is based in Huntsville, Alabama, was working under NASA's AEGIS contract, a 10-year, $2.5 billion award NASA made to Leidos in 2021 to build a unified cloud, network and cybersecurity system across the agency's centers. According to the WARN notice, the affected scope of that work will now be handled in-house by NASA workers.

The company said some or all of its AEGIS employees in the affected areas could receive in-sourced offers from NASA. Workers who do not accept an offer will be terminated by Aetos by Dec. 31, 2026, with separations expected to fall between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31, according to the filing as reported by WKMG and Patch. The notice says Aetos understands from NASA that the change is permanent.

All 126 potentially affected employees are represented by two unions, according to the letter. The jobs on the list range widely, from communication system engineers and electronic technicians to photo planners and training coordinators.

Neither the notice nor news coverage indicated how many of the 126 workers NASA intends to hire. Federal law requires employers with 100 or more workers to give 60 days' notice before a mass layoff or plant closing, which is why both companies filed with the Florida Department of Commerce.

Amentum's 70 cuts come first

Amentum's notice, filed Sept. 25, covers its Base Operations and Spaceport Services contract, known as BOSS, which handles institutional support at the center. The layoffs take effect Nov. 30.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the notice reads in part: "NASA has notified Amentum, Base Operations and Spaceport Services (BOSS), of its decision to insource those skills and functions at Kennedy Space Center which NASA has identified as core competencies. As a result, Amentum will be unable to continue employment for a number of employees whose roles are affected by this transition."

The cuts include 15 engineering technicians, 13 electrical engineering positions, 13 other engineering jobs and 11 test conductors, along with analysts, planners and system administrators. Fourteen of the 70 positions are represented by a union.

The two filings compare this way:

A big footprint at Kennedy

Amentum is woven through nearly every operation at the spaceport. The company employed nearly 2,800 people at Kennedy earlier this year, according to the Sentinel. Its workers drive the crawler transporter that carries Artemis rockets to and from the launch pad, and they made up most of the closeout crew that helped the Artemis II astronauts into the Orion spacecraft before launch.

BOSS is one of three Amentum contracts at Kennedy and employed about 550 people earlier this year. The bulk of the company's local workforce, more than 2,100 people, works under COMET, a $3.2 billion NASA contract for consolidated operations, management, engineering and test. A third contract, with about 130 workers, supplies liquid propellants to launch providers at Kennedy and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Kennedy's fiscal year 2025 report counted 2,079 civil servants and 5,868 contractors on site, plus 540 construction workers and 9,214 employees of private companies such as SpaceX and Boeing, for a total population of 17,701. Those numbers show how much of the center's day-to-day work has been done by contractors, and why a shift toward civil servants can ripple through the Space Coast economy.

Why NASA is bringing work in-house

Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut who now leads NASA, has argued the agency leaned too heavily on contractors. Coverage of the Amentum cuts ties them to a Feb. 6 directive in which he asked center directors to identify outsourced technical and operational work that could be converted to civil service roles. At an April congressional budget hearing he said roughly three-quarters of NASA's workforce are contractors and argued that moving some of them in-house would be cost-effective.

The Sentinel reported that the shift gained urgency as Isaacman detailed the failures behind Boeing's Starliner crewed test flight, which NASA later classified as a Type A mishap. He has framed the effort as restoring internal expertise rather than abandoning industry. "Relying on industry to get us there is one of our strengths at NASA, is not a liability, but there are certainly things we can do better here in order to achieve our objectives," he said, according to the Sentinel.

The policy has a financial cost for contractors. Washington Technology reported in August that NASA's insourcing push is expected to cost Amentum about 3% of its revenue in 2027.

Some workers are switching badges

For some employees, the change means trading a contractor badge for a federal one rather than losing work. Kennedy Director Brian Hughes recently welcomed 150 new civil servants in a post on X, saying they "will help strengthen NASA's operations and mission support work." Taylor Hose, who led the Artemis II closeout crew, posted in late September: "After almost 7 years as a contractor, today I can finally say I am a NASA employee!"

Other reports have put the number of new federal hires at the center this fall higher, at close to 600, though the figures have not been reconciled publicly. The WARN notices do not say how many affected Amentum or Aetos employees received or accepted NASA offers.

What it means for the Space Coast

Brevard County has weathered far larger swings at Kennedy, most notably the thousands of jobs lost when the space shuttle program ended in 2011, and the commercial launch boom led by companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin has since brought new jobs to the area. The current cuts are smaller and partly offset by federal hiring. But contractor jobs at the center have long been a stable source of middle-class wages for engineers and technicians, and union-represented workers in particular will be watching whether NASA offers match their current pay and seniority.

The insourcing also raises questions for other Kennedy contractors. NASA has not publicly listed every function it plans to bring in-house, and further WARN notices would be the first public signal of additional cuts.

What's next

Amentum's BOSS layoffs take effect Nov. 30, and Aetos expects its separations to be complete by Dec. 31. Workers offered NASA jobs must decide before then whether to make the switch. NASA leaders are scheduled to be at Kennedy on Oct. 23 for an update on the agency's plan to accelerate the Artemis program and land astronauts on the Moon in 2028, a session where the workforce shift could come up. Affected workers who do not move to NASA can seek reemployment help through their local CareerSource office.