As United Launch Alliance transitions to stay competitive in the new space race, the company confirmed Friday that it is cutting 375 jobs.

Most of the job losses are expected to be voluntary and affected employees will get a severance package, ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said.

“As ULA continues our transformation, we have determined that a reduction in force is necessary,” Rye said in a statement. “ULA’s intention is to accomplish most, if not all of the reductions via voluntary separation. We anticipate up to 375 employees separating from ULA across all five locations.”

ULA currently employs 3,400 people, with about 1,500 in Colorado. Rye said the job reductions are expected to be completed “later this year.”

The Centennial-based developer of spacecraft launchers faces pressure from new competitors led by billionaire tech entrepreneurs.

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic want to expand into space tourism and are currently taking a bite of the existing aerospace market.

Last May, SpaceX broke ULA’s monopoly on national security launches after getting certified to launch satellites for the Pentagon.

ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. formed in 2006, hasn’t been struggling, per se.

The company has had a perfect performance record and no failed launches, defense analyst Loren Thompson with the Lexington Institute told Bloomberg News recently.

But Thompson said that the new competitors, the government and others are putting pressure on ULA to change and deliver better results.

ULA has spent the past year making changes and finding ways to cut costs so it’s more streamlined and less reliant on government contracts. Last June, it cut 12 positions, or 30 percent of its executive team.

A month later, it announced it would put a small engineering team in Pueblo to bring some of its rocket testing in house. The propulsion testing facility will help the company’s existing Atlas and Delta rockets and its new Vulcan launch system, which will include reusable booster engines.

But in November, ULA dropped out of a bidding process against SpaceX for the launch of a new satellite for the Air Force-run GPS. At the time, ULA said it wouldn’t compete unless the Pentagon let it buy more Russian-made RD-180 engines. The government declined.

Last month, ULA partnered with Blue Origin, Aerojet Rocketdyne and the Air Force to make new engines here in the United States.

Tamara Chuang: tchuang@denverpost.com or visit dpo.st/tamara