WASHINGTON - In a move that has all the subtlety of a lunar module falling out of orbit, NASA’s decision to indefinitely halt work on the Gateway has led Paragon Space Development Corp. to lay off 70 employees. The company announced Aug. 11 that it performed a “companywide restructuring” after its contract to provide life support systems for the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module was terminated by Northrop Grumman, the prime contractor.

HALO was a key part of the Gateway, a facility NASA planned to develop in a near-rectilinear halo orbit around the moon to support Artemis missions, with contributions from several countries. At its Ignition event in March, NASA effectively canceled the project, leaving Paragon and others to pick up the pieces.

Paragon, based in Tucson, Arizona, said the layoffs affected personnel in Arizona, Colorado, and Texas. “Our workforce reduction is one of the most difficult decisions in Paragon’s 33-year history, affecting people who have given this company and this industry their best work,” said Mark Greeley, president and CEO, in a statement that likely resonated with the 70 now-unemployed.

Paragon was a subcontractor to Northrop and expects compensation for closeout costs, while retaining intellectual property rights to the life support technologies it had been developing for HALO. Northrop, for its part, announced Aug. 4 that it would fly some HALO-developed technologies, including power and avionics systems, to the moon on three Lunar Infrastructure Demo missions starting later this decade, using commercial landers from NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

Northrop had previously suggested the HALO module itself could be repurposed as a lunar habitat, but acknowledged corrosion issues with the structure provided by Thales Alenia Space. Nothing says 'let's reuse it' like a corroded module.

Paragon, however, insists the loss is a setback, not a fatal blow. “Gateway’s cancellation changes one program. It does not change what our customers need or what we do best,” Greeley said. “Human spaceflight still depends on the systems that let people live and work in extreme environments, the work Paragon has done for more than three decades.” The company is now looking to apply its life support expertise to NASA’s lunar base plans and other projects, because apparently, there’s always another harsh environment to keep humans alive in.