NASA’s workforce is undergoing one of its largest reductions in decades, with nearly 4,000 employees choosing to resign through a deferred departure program backed by the Trump administration.

Around 3,870 individuals are expected to depart the agency but that number could change in the coming days, a NASA spokesperson said on Friday

The US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) will lose about 3,900 employees under Donald Trump's sweeping effort to trim the federal workforce — at the same time as the president prioritises plans for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.