Boeing Cuts 300 Exquisite Jobs. Millennium Adds Shifts for 100 Satellites.

#Boeing's Millennium Space Systems Ramps Production Hiring as Resolute Mid-Class Platform Enters Design Review

The Resolute Platform Fills a Power Gap

Boeing is targeting 26 satellite deliveries in 2026 — more than double its 2025 rate — and subsidiary Millennium Space Systems carries a 100-satellite backlog. The production push coincides with the April 2026 unveiling of Resolute, a mid-class satellite platform designed for the 2-to-4-kilowatt power range between Millennium's small-sat line (50 watts to 1 kilowatt) and Boeing's traditional buses (4 kilowatts to 30 kilowatts and higher).

Resolute is built on Millennium's flight-proven common products (flight computers, avionics, and power modules) with on-orbit heritage. The platform entered preliminary design review in 2026 and is bid-ready this year. Its modular payload interface allows rapid integration of sensors or communication packages without redesigning the bus. Boeing says the platform supports communications, sensing, and other mission needs across low, medium, and geosynchronous orbits.

"We're aligning our space business to meet a market that is moving faster and asking for more flexibility," said Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space, Intelligence & Weapons Systems. "That means increasing production throughput, broadening the portfolio, and giving customers more options for how they field and scale capability over time."

The feeder factory in El Segundo grew from 15,000 to 22,000 square feet this year. A new electro-optical infrared production line at Boeing's El Segundo facility will supply 12 Epoch missile-warning and tracking satellites for the Space Force. The same common products thread through all of it.

"This is about more than one product," said Tony Gingiss, CEO of Millennium Space Systems. "We are building the production depth, common architecture and capacity to scale with demand. That includes expanding into mission areas where customers want more capability, while staying focused on execution and delivery across the backlog already in front of us."

Sears described the combination as "a startup mentality with the resources and heritage of a prime." The distinction is deliberate: Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant, head of Space Systems Command, has said the service needs industry ready to scale from 10 units to 40 on command. Resolute's production line is the proof point.

Fourteen Roles Signal Production Cadence

Millennium Space Systems has 14 production and test roles open in El Segundo, posted across recent weeks. The roles: Senior ATLO Engineer, ATLO Functional Manager, Spacecraft Systems Engineer (Experienced), Sr. Environmental Test Engineer (2nd shift), two Experienced Production Operations Specialists (Environmental Testing, 2nd shift; Electro-Mechanical, 2nd shift), Electro-Mechanical Technician Senior (1st shift), Manufacturing Engineer – Structures & Propulsion (1st shift), Manufacturing Engineer – Avionics (Associate/Mid), Quality Inspector Senior (2nd shift), Material Planner, Material Project Manager, Industrial Security Specialist, and Leader of Manufacturing.

Every posting sits in El Segundo. The shift coverage (first and second) signals a factory cadence. ATLO leads and environmental test engineers appear together as the Resolute platform enters qualification. The Industrial Security Specialist role confirms the facility operates at a cleared level; Millennium job listings on ClearanceJobs.com show test and IT engineering positions requiring active security clearances.

Millennium's careers page states: "You don't already have to work in space to work at Millennium. Because we use the latest commercial tech, we're able to hire from other industries."

How Boeing Splits Prime and Production

Boeing is using Millennium as its rapid-production arm for proliferated architectures while Boeing Defense, Space & Security retains prime-level integration and payload development.

"She restated her earlier view," Sears said. "She highlighted the implications." Boeing supplies EO/IR payloads and mission-architecture expertise honed on programs like SBIR Millennium supplies the bus, common avionics, and factory tempo.

Gingiss described it as that approach.

Meanwhile, Boeing Defense, Space & Security absorbed roughly 300 job reductions in February 2026 even as it relocated its headquarters to St. Louis, where more than 18,000 employees now sit across defense, commercial, and services units. The cuts targeted "mission-critical military aircraft, satellite systems, and defense technologies" (the exquisite-program side of the house) while the El Segundo facility adds shifts.

Why the Pentagon Needs Two Orbits

The Pentagon's missile-warning architecture is splitting. Legacy systems — SBIRS and the incoming Next-Gen OPIR in geostationary orbit — handle strategic warning. The Space Development Agency and the Missile Defense Agency now require a proliferated layer in low and medium Earth orbit.

SDA's Tranche 2 Tracking Layer and the FOO Fighter (F2) program define that layer. FOO Fighter will demonstrate fire-control sensors on a prototype constellation separate from but complementary to the warning and tracking mission, per SDA's own industry-day materials. The draft solicitation makes the requirement explicit: accelerate the ability to provide fire control in support of global detection, warning, and precision tracking of advanced missile threats including hypersonic systems. GAO confirms the shift — DOD is prioritizing missile warning and tracking in LEO and MEO with constellations of large numbers of low-value satellites rather than a few exquisite birds.

MDA has fielded an initial capability against limited ballistic missile attack and now needs sensor data that meets fire-control standards. SDA lists tactical data links as a parallel priority: coverage, resilience, and capacity for moving targeting data across the mesh.

SDA and MDA are buying satellites by the tranche (eight for FOO Fighter, dozens more for Tracking Layer), and they need buses that can host OPIR payloads, survive radiation in MEO, and roll off a line fast enough to replenish as threats evolve. Resolute was built to fill that mission.

Workforce Data: Two Pools, One Factory Floor

Millennium's hiring sits at the intersection of two talent pools. Legacy cleared systems engineers bring active clearances and fluency in DoD acquisition frameworks. Commercial small-sat engineers bring design-for-manufacturing and modular avionics experience. The compensation data shows where the friction lives.

Sources: Levels.fyi (median total compensation), 6figr (11 verified profiles, mostly hardware/software roles), Salary.com (Systems Engineer average), Zero G Talent board data (live Millennium postings with salary bands).

Electrical and project-management roles sit at the top. Software and hardware roles cluster lower. The technician and production-ops bands reflect a second shift staffed for volume; the hourly ceiling (~$47/hr ≈ $98k base) is below cleared systems-engineer levels.

Industry analyses from Deloitte, AIA, and McKinsey flag critical shortages in engineering and skilled trades, exacerbated by clearance bottlenecks. Boeing posted 39 roles in the past week; Northrop Grumman posted 37. The industrial base is fishing in the same pond.

The Mid-Class Field Is Crowded

York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman are the three vendors building satellites for SDA's first operational Tranche 1 Transport Layer. For the Tracking Layer, SDA awarded $3.5 billion in Tranche 3 contracts to four teams led by Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris, each contracted for 18 satellites.

York's volume is distinct. The Denver company has 136 Transport Layer satellites under contract across Tranches 0, 1, and 2: nine delivered for Tranche 0 in 2.5 years, 42 in production for Tranche 1, 62 for Tranche 2 Alpha, and 10 for Tranche 2 Gamma. Its S-CLASS and LX-CLASS platforms run on a commercial commodity model. CEO Dirk Wallinger argues this is the only way to sustain U.S. industrial leadership. Executive VP Melanie Preisser said the firm delivered 21 Tranche 1 satellites for a September 2025 launch and supported five missions this year, its busiest cadence yet.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman both won Tranche 2 Tracking Layer prototype agreements in January 2024 (part of a 54-satellite award) and both secured 18-satellite Tranche 3 Tracking Layer contracts. Jeff Schrader, vice president at Lockheed Martin Space, has pointed to "smart sat" technology integrated into its LEO missile-tracking buses. Northrop Grumman completed preliminary design review on 74 Tranche 2 satellites and, per Blake Bullock, vice president of Military Space Systems, is moving into detailed design while executing Tranche 1 deliveries. General Atomics supplies missile-warning payloads for the Lockheed Martin buses.

The production models diverge. York runs a high-rate, low-cost line built on commercial supply chains and autonomous operations. The primes run cleared, requirements-driven programs with deeper sensor integration: Lockheed's Next-Gen OPIR heritage, Northrop's SBIRS/STSS lineage.

Headcount signals reflect the split. Zero G Talent's board shows Northrop Grumman added 37 roles in the past week (cost analysts, structural engineers, modeling specialists) spread across El Segundo, San Diego, and Melbourne. Millennium's 14 open roles cluster in production operations, electro-mechanical technicians, and security specialists. York's hiring tempo isn't public, but five concurrent missions and a 2027 Gamma launch target imply a workforce scaling at speed.

The mid-class tier is no longer a paper study. Three companies are bending metal for Transport; four are designing for Tracking. The capacity exists — the question is whether the cleared workforce can sustain two parallel production cultures.

Working in space? Zero G Talent tracks the openings: browse space jobs, openings at Northrop Grumman and Boeing, and the people building the field.