New Orleans jobs with a large NASA plant will soon be cut.

As NASA’s space shuttle program is expected to end in 2010, job cuts will soon be taking place at the Michoud assembly plant in New Orleans. Lockheed Martin, which makes up the majority of the workforce at the plant, plans to progressively eliminate 2,300 positions during the next three years, according to an article by WWLTV. About 75 percent of the employees at Michoud are assigned to making fuel tanks, but after 2010, NASA’s new fleet of space craft won’t need that tank.

“Every quarter beginning in 2009, we will reduce the workforce, most likely in approximately 20 percent increments until 2010,” Michael Javery, Lockheed Martin vice president of operations, said in the article.
The 500 employees that remain at Michoud under Lockheed Martin following the job cuts will be in charge of producing new crew exploration vehicles, which will be attached to NASA’s new line of space craft. Many of the workers who aren’t chosen to work on the NASA project will likely be transferred to other projects contracted out to Lockheed Martin.

“We’re trying to place them in other Lockheed Martin business units in other parts of the country,” Javery added.

The employees with jobs in New Orleans at Michoud recently helped make the fuel tank for the NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour, which was launched into space from Florida.

“To be able to have worked on the program before is something I’m going to be able to tell my kids one day,” Adam Chisholm, Lockheed Martin systems engineer, said in the article.

The next major NASA contract up for bid will be for the construction of the nation’s newest space craft. If the Michoud plant is awarded the project, Javery estimates that could bring as many as 1,500 employees back to New Orleans in 2012.