{"id":413469,"date":"2026-02-07T20:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413469\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T20:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:33:14","slug":"nasa-seeks-to-bolster-workforce-reduce-reliance-on-contractors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/413469\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA seeks to bolster workforce, reduce reliance on contractors"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 After losing about 20% of its civil servant workforce in the past year, NASA\u2019s administrator says the agency plans to bring more expertise in-house and reduce its reliance on contractors.<\/p>\n

In a social media post<\/a> Feb. 6, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced a new workforce directive aimed at addressing what he described as a loss of technical competency within the agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASA has outright lost or outsourced many core competencies in engineering and operations that once enabled the agency to undertake the near-impossible in air and space,\u201d Isaacman said in a video accompanying the post.<\/p>\n

He said about 75% of the people working at NASA are contractors, employed by \u201cmultiple primes [and] hundreds of subcontractors\u201d with \u201cexcessive management layers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only is this highly inefficient and leads to continuous program delays, but it\u2019s costly to the tune of nearly $1.4 billion a year in needless expenses,\u201d he said. Isaacman did not explain how NASA calculated that figure.<\/p>\n

In the video, Isaacman said field centers and mission directorates will determine within the next 30 days which technical and operational roles should be brought in-house. That assessment will be followed within 60 days by what he described as \u201crapid onboarding\u201d of new civil servants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future state aims to use contracted workforce primarily for limited-term assignments, surge staffing and specialized functions outside NASA\u2019s core competencies,\u201d states the directive, a copy of which SpaceNews obtained.<\/p>\n

Besides developing a new process for quickly hiring civil servants, the directive calls on agency officials to develop a strategy for moving work from contractors to civil servants. That includes a plan \u201cto convert or add targeted roles to civil service, addressing contract changes, renegotiations or terminations, timelines, and cost implications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other goals for the next 60 days include improving the agency\u2019s \u201ctalent pipeline.\u201d Isaacman said that effort will involve working with the Office of Personnel Management on its \u201cTech Force\u201d initiative, which brings private-sector engineers into government agencies for two-year assignments. The directive also calls for enhanced training programs and expanded internship opportunities.<\/p>\n

Isaacman said the directive will also require future contracts to include \u201cright-to-repair\u201d provisions that give NASA access to the tools and intellectual property needed to maintain contractor-provided equipment. The agency will also work to establish makerspaces at all field centers for hardware prototyping.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re restoring in-house engineering and operational excellence to reclaim technical autonomy and concentrating our resources on the most needle-moving objectives,\u201d Isaacman said in the video.<\/p>\n

The directive follows a year in which NASA, under acting leadership, offered deferred retirement programs that led to the departure of roughly one-fifth of its civil servant workforce, including many senior employees. The reductions were part of broader personnel departures across the federal government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview conducted before the directive\u2019s release, Isaacman downplayed the magnitude of the civil servant departures, pointing to the size of NASA\u2019s contractor workforce. He acknowledged, however, that the agency had become overly dependent on contractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the bigger surprises is that in certain areas within NASA, we have either lost or outsourced some of our core competencies,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of things that we have some external dependencies on that I would not have expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaacman said then that rebuilding those capabilities internally was a priority. \u201cIs this an opportunity to bring more talent into the organization? The answer is yes,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are certain capabilities and areas of expertise that I consider essential for NASA to execute its mission that have been either degraded, lost or outsourced over the years and that we have to rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked for specifics, Isaacman said there are issues \u201cacross the board\u201d in its spaceflight and aeronautics programs. \u201cThere are a lot of external dependencies that you would think are pretty core to the mission of trying to change the world in air and space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The directive follows Isaacman\u2019s visits to all of NASA\u2019s field centers. He said that before beginning the tour, he reviewed suggestions submitted by employees and contractors through an internal \u201cideas box,\u201d as well as more than 300 questions posed during his first town hall meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo before I even hit the road, I felt like I had a reasonable pulse of how the workforce was thinking about certain things, where there were good opportunities to do better, and where there were obstacles or problems to clear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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