Grumman Space & Electronics to Lay Off About 125 Workers

About 125 employees of Grumman Space & Electronics Group in Irvine have been told that they “will be terminated from the company as early as Dec. 2,” according to an in-house memorandum.

TRW Inc. and Grumman Space & Electronics, a unit of Grumman Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y., teamed up last year to win a $225-million contract to develop a satellite for the U.S. Air Force. The new spacecraft, called the Follow-on Early Warning System (FEWS), would detect a nuclear-missile attack.

Under the agreement, TRW Space & Technology Group in Redondo Beach would make the satellite, while Grumman would provide a sensor designed to discover engine emissions from a ballistic missile launch. The two-year contract meant employment for a total of about 450 people at TRW and Grumman.

But, apparently, the Air Force has decided to cut drastically the FEWS program. On Monday, the companies “received formal notification from the Air Force of a partial stop work order on the FEWS contract,” the Grumman memo said.

Officials with Grumman and TRW declined to comment about the layoffs. Government officials could not be reached to discuss the fate of the FEWS program.