KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. Another wave of contractor layoffs is headed for Kennedy Space Center. Aetos Systems Inc., a Huntsville, Alabama-based government contractor, has warned that up to 126 of its employees working at KSC could lose their jobs by the end of the year as NASA pulls their work in-house.
The notice comes on top of the 70 Amentum layoffs at KSC that surfaced earlier this month, making Aetos the second contractor at the center in less than a month to issue a layoff warning tied to NASA’s push to bring contracted work back under its own civil service workforce. Together, the two notices put as many as 196 contractor jobs at Kennedy on the line before the end of 2026.
What the Aetos notice says
Aetos filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with FloridaCommerce on Oct. 16. According to the filing, which is posted on the state’s WARN notice database, Aetos works as a subcontractor to Leidos on NASA’s Advanced Enterprise Global Information Technology Solutions contract, known as AEGIS. NASA plans to remove portions of Aetos’ work at Kennedy from that contract and bring it in-house between Dec. 1 and Dec. 31.
In a letter to the state, Amanda Wheaton, Aetos’ vice president of corporate operations, said the cuts are a direct result of NASA shifting the work to civil servants and that some positions will not be retained by NASA, according to WhatNow. The company said NASA considers the change permanent.
Aetos said some or all of the affected employees may receive in-sourced job offers from NASA. Workers in the affected areas who do not accept those offers will be terminated by Aetos by Dec. 31, 2026, the company said, as reported by Patch.
NASA has said the move is about restoring internal competencies and is not a reflection on the contractor’s performance, according to WFIT.
Jobs affected
The positions listed in the notice span a wide range of technical and specialized roles, including communications systems engineers, electronic technicians, network technicians, instrumentation specialists and field systems specialists. Senior CAD drafters, photo planners, systems planning specialists and training coordinators are also on the list.
All 126 potentially affected employees are union members. According to the filing, 118 are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2088 in Merritt Island, and the remaining eight are represented by Local 780 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. For positions that are not moved to NASA, Aetos said layoffs will follow the seniority and bumping provisions of the workers’ collective bargaining agreements, Florida Today reported.
The AEGIS contract
NASA awarded Leidos the AEGIS contract in 2021. The 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement covers telecommunications, cloud and data center services across all NASA centers, including network infrastructure, cybersecurity, telephone, cabling, radio and emergency warning systems, according to FedScoop. The contract runs through Aug. 31, 2031, if all options are exercised.
Follows Amentum cuts earlier this month
The Aetos notice is the latest fallout from NASA’s insourcing effort at Kennedy. Earlier this month, The Space Coast Rocket reported that Amentum, NASA’s prime contractor for ground systems and launch operations at KSC, would cut 70 Kennedy jobs by Nov. 30 as NASA took over portions of that work. Those cuts affected engineering and technician roles.
Both rounds of layoffs trace back to a workforce directive NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman issued on Feb. 6. The directive, titled “Restoring NASA’s Core Competencies,” instructed center directors to identify outsourced technical and operational work and propose converting core roles to civil service positions, according to SpacePolicyOnline. Isaacman tied the effort to President Trump’s December 2025 executive order on American space superiority.
Isaacman has said contractors make up roughly three-quarters of NASA’s workforce and has estimated the contracting structure adds about $1 billion a year in overhead, Payload reported. The directive does not eliminate contractors but aims to limit them mainly to short-term assignments, surge staffing and specialized work outside NASA’s core functions.
The shift is already reshaping Kennedy’s workforce. Nearly 600 new NASA civil servants took their oaths of office at the center on Sept. 21.
Workers who want to apply for in-house positions can find information on NASA’s Restoring Core Competencies careers page, where the agency posts vacancy announcements as centers complete their assessments.
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