The Blue Origin NS-19 crew stand next to the New Shepard rocket after their successful launch on December 11, 2021
The Blue Origin NS-19 crew stand next to the New Shepard rocket after their successful launch on December 11, 2021. AFP / Patrick T. FALLON

KEY POINTS

  • Software engineers and program managers were reportedly hit this time
  • Talent acquisition units were affected by workforce downsizing in September
  • The FAA has ended its probe into a 2022 launch mishap involving a Blue Origin rocket

Aerospace firm Blue Origin has reportedly laid off around 40 employees after the company was put through an aviation probe that required it to implement more than a dozen corrective actions to resume rocket launches.

The latest round of cuts at Jeff Bezos' space venture affected program managers and software engineers in the enterprise technology department, the Information reported, citing a person familiar with the situation. Some of the affected employees were reportedly informed they could apply for other open roles within the firm.

A former UX designer at the company confirmed in a LinkedIn post that he was among the workers laid off late last week at the Kent, Washington-based firm.

The outlet said Blue Origin's workforce ballooned over the past five years from 850 to nearly 11,000. Following the latest round of layoffs, the exact number of remaining employees is unknown.

Blue Origin did not immediately respond to International Business Times' request for comment.

Blue Origin last month laid off "several people" at its human resources/talent acquisition departments. A former talent sourcer at the company and many others took to LinkedIn at the time to report about the workforce reduction.

TechCrunch's Aria Alamalhodaei wrote on X that it looked like "some (but not all) folks were given the opportunity to find another role within the org."

Despite the consecutive layoffs, the aerospace firm has more than 400 open positions on its website.

News of the layoffs at Blue Origin came less than two weeks after U.S. aviation regulators closed a probe into a launch mishap, which saw the firm's New Shephard rocket fall back to the ground shortly after liftoff last year. The space company's rockets have been grounded since the accident.

"During the mishap, the onboard launch vehicle systems detected the anomaly, triggered an abort and separation of the capsule from the propulsion module as intended and shut down the engine," the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said of the Sept. 12, 2022 engine nozzle failure.

The FAA noted the closure of the investigation doesn't mean Blue Origin is off the hook as the aerospace firm still has to complete "21 corrective actions" before it can resume launches.

Blue Origin was selected in May by NASA to build a lunar lander for the Artemis 5 mission that's scheduled for takeoff in 2029. The Bezos space venture is next after Elon Musk's SpaceX to be selected for ferrying astronauts to the Moon's surface.

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