Rockwell to Cut 500 Jobs at Seal Beach HQ, Downey Plant : Aerospace: Space shuttle builder says workers ‘at all levels’ will be laid off, starting in February.

Rockwell International Corp., citing cutbacks and delays in major space programs, said Wednesday that it plans to lay off at least 500 people at its Seal Beach headquarters and in Downey, where its space systems division is based.

The layoffs will start in February and will include workers “at all levels,” said Rockwell, the largest supplier to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the prime space shuttle contractor.

Rockwell’s space systems group employs 540 in Seal Beach and 4,060 in Downey, where Rockwell built the shuttle fleet. The company doesn’t yet know how the layoffs will be divided among the sites, spokeswoman Janet Dean said.

Dean said the layoffs will not affect the company’s plan, announced in October, to shift employees among its sites in Southern California during the next year.

In an attempt to use empty office buildings more efficiently and save as much as $100 million, Rockwell said it would move 1,300 employees from its North American Aircraft division in El Segundo to underused buildings at its corporate headquarters in Seal Beach.

In turn, 550 employees of the space systems division would be moved from Seal Beach to the division’s headquarters in Downey. The shuffling would mean a net addition of 750 jobs to Orange County.

Rockwell--which also makes rocket engines, defense electronics, auto components and factory automation gear--employs 21,500 in Southern California overall and 77,000 worldwide.

The layoffs mainly reflect the scaling back of the proposed space station, along with canceled orders for certain extra structural parts for the shuttle fleet, Dean said.

Because of the space station revisions, NASA and some of its other contractors--including McDonnell Douglas’ aerospace group in Huntington Beach--said in October that together they would eliminate more than 4,000 jobs this year.