Blue Origin Announces 10% Layoffs

Thursday morning, Feb. 13 and less than one month after the successful first flight of their New Glenn rocket, Blue Origin told workers that the workforce would be cut by 10%.   

The cuts were announced during an all-hands meeting on Thursday morning led by the rocket company's chief executive, Dave Limp. During the gathering, Limp cited "business strategy" as the rationale for making the cuts to a workforce of more than 10,000 people.
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In a follow-up email to employees on Thursday morning under the subject "Difficult Org News," Limp said the decision was the result of the company's planning for 2025 and need for sustainable growth. Blue's primary goal for the coming year is to scale up its manufacturing output and launch cadence of the New Glenn rocket. Limp cited the scramble to complete the development of New Glenn and get the rocket into orbit as rationale for the cuts.

CEO Limp added: "We grew and hired incredibly fast in the last few years, and with that growth came more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed.  It also became clear that the makeup of our organization must change to ensure our roles are best aligned with executing these priorities." 

That sounds to me like they need more proportionally less forward-looking employees like systems or design engineers, and more people that can get the production work of various levels done.  

With the cuts, Blue Origin will seek to trim its management ranks. Of the cuts, Limp said, "This resulted in eliminating some positions in engineering, R&D, and program/project management and thinning out our layers of management."

He added that these difficult decisions will set Blue Origin on course for success this year and beyond. "This year alone, we will land on the Moon, deliver a record number of incredible engines, and fly New Glenn and New Shepard on a regular cadence," he wrote.

Rumors have been circulating that the company has had a hiring freeze in place for the past six months, and that they've let the majority of their contractors go.   

This difficult decision is part of getting the New Glenn operational, so it's worth noting that SpaceNews reported today that Blue is planning the second launch of the vehicle in "late spring" with the intent of cleaning up all the questions left hanging by the first flight - primarily the loss of the booster when they hoped to land and recover it. 

Speaking at the 27^th Annual Commercial Space Conference here Feb. 12, Dave Limp, chief executive of Blue Origin, suggested a propulsion issue of some kind caused the loss of the New Glenn booster during its landing attempt on the Jan. 16 NG-1 launch.

“We had most of the right conditions in the engine but we weren’t able to get everything right to the engine from the tanks,” he said. “We think we understand what the issues are.”  [NOTE: "here" in the first sentence appears to refer to Washington DC - SiG]

Limp understandably doesn't want to get too specific about why they lost the booster but implies they believe they have a plausible explanation (or more than one).  He noted, though, that demonstrating the in-flight relight of the BE-4 engines was one thing Blue Origin could not demonstrate before the launch.  We've heard this before.  For example, we've read that some maneuvering of the rocket must be done to force fuel by inertia into a place in the fuel tank where it can be pumped to the engines. 

“It was a combination of a couple things,” he said. “This was our first attempt at it. I don’t want to go into too much detail because we’re still going through the anomaly investigation. I feel like the team has a really good handle to it and modifications are not complicated.”

Blue Origin's New Glenn lifts off on its first flight Jan. 16. Credit: Blue Origin