Space shuttle workers to lose jobs

The private contractor that handles the bulk of the work servicing Nasa’s space shuttle fleet is notifying 1,400 employees that they will be laid off in the autumn.

United Space Alliance this week began telling workers, including 900 employees at the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral and others in Texas and Alabama, that they are expected to be let go by October 1 as part of planned reductions from the end of the space shuttle programme.

Laid-off workers will receive between four and 26 weeks of pay, depending on their years of service.

The shuttle programme now employs about 8,700 contractors, down from 12,000 employees in October 2008.

It also employs another 1,200 civil workers, who are expected to be assigned to new programmes after the shuttle.

The last shuttle flight is expected next year.

Meanwhile, Nasa is going ahead with the Discovery preparations, mainly with the crew practice pacewalking.

In Orbiter Processing Facility-3 at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, crews have completed pressurization of space shuttle Discovery’s auxiliary power units 1, 2, and 3 gearboxes. Freon coolant loop top-off and main engine dome heat shield installations also were successfully completed on Wednesday.

The six STS-133 crew members will rehearse procedures for the mission’s second spacewalk in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near Nasa’s Johnson Space Centrein Houston yesterday.

During space shuttle Discovery’s final spaceflight, the STS-133 crew members will take important spare parts to the International Space Station along with the Express Logistics Carrier-4. Discovery is being readied for flight inside Kennedy’s Orbiter Processing Facility-3 while its solid rocket boosters are stacked inside the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building. STS-133 is slated to launch Nov. 1.