WASHINGTON — More than two dozen major NASA projects say they have been affected by the loss of a fifth of NASA’s civil servant workforce in the last year, raising concerns about delays and cost increases.
The Government Accountability Office, in a July 23 report assessing NASA’s major projects in development, said that 25 of the 36 projects included in its study reported feeling effects from last year’s departure of 22% of the agency’s civil servants through deferred retirement programs.
“The civil servant departures have left NASA’s workforce out of balance with NASA’s programmatic needs,” the GAO stated in its report.
The report included several examples of science and exploration projects dealing with the loss of personnel. Orion, for example, lost 10% of its civil servants, and officials said they faced “challenges in filling several key positions,” although other agency officials said they took steps to mitigate those concerns. The Space Launch System program lost nearly 20% of its civil servant workforce, and the program is now considering adding workforce as a formal risk to the program.
Another example in the report was DAVINCI, a Venus mission led by the Goddard Space Flight Center that suffered the loss of key personnel as well as the threat of cancellation in NASA’s fiscal year 2026 budget request. The mission was not able to immediately replace those personnel and had to revise planned risk-reduction activities for the mission as a result. DAVINCI was funded in the final fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill, allowing the project to restore staffing, but it is among the dozens of missions facing cancellation in the administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget request.
Goddard is the NASA center hardest hit by the workforce reductions, losing 34% of its civil servants. NASA Headquarters suffered the fewest losses, at 11%. Other centers reported reductions of between 16% and 28% in their civil servant workforces.
“Moving forward, some centers may be challenged to meet the workforce needs of the mission directorates because of the reduced civil servant workforce,” the report stated. “Some centers, particularly those that encountered large workforce losses, may not be able to adequately staff all planned work.”
So far, those staffing issues have not affected cost and schedule performance on those programs. Since its previous assessment a year ago, the GAO found that only two programs had suffered schedule slips of one month each, while another, the IMAP space science mission, launched three months early. The report did find $478.2 million in net overruns, concentrated in the SLS Block 1B and Orion programs.
However, the report warned the workforce reductions could have bigger impacts in the future. NASA’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, or OCHCO, told the GAO that “due to the gradual workforce reductions through January 2026, the impact of the reductions has not yet been fully realized across the agency.”
The report cited the example of Psyche, an asteroid mission that suffered staffing shortfalls that led to a one-year launch delay and $132 million in additional costs, while also delaying another mission under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the VERITAS Venus orbiter.
OCHCO told the GAO that it had identified “skill gaps in mission-critical areas” that included aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, information technology and cybersecurity.
NASA has taken steps to bolster its workforce. In February, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the agency would seek to bring in new civil servants, although primarily by converting existing contractors. The agency also announced “NASA Force,” a partnership with the Office of Personnel Management to bring “high-impact technical talent” into the agency on temporary assignments.
“NASA officials stated that they will have more clarity on their workforce plans after the agency completes these actions,” the GAO report stated, which the officials said would be in late spring. NASA has yet to provide public updates on those plans and Isaacman, in a July 1 letter included in the report, said that the impact of the workforce reductions “is still being assessed.”
Another uncertainty is NASA’s funding for fiscal year 2027, as the administration again proposed major cuts to the agency. A House bill would largely override those cuts, while Senate appropriators have not advanced their own spending bill. “If the agency were funded at the level requested,” the GAO report warned, “it could lead to further workforce reductions or possibly forestall planned hiring.”
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