Reportedly, NASA has not been completely grounded by the government shutdown. The partial shutdown, which is the country’s longest ever, at 24 days and still counting, has of course had a grave influence on the space agency. More than 95% of NASA workers have been furloughed, and growth effort on most future space missions has been reduced or deferred. Certainly, some NASA workers assembled outside the Johnson Space Center in Houston to protest the closure and its harmful effects on their lives and the space program of the nation.
But then again, some significant workers remain at work, keeping people of NASA and operational spacecraft harmless. For illustration, life aboard the International Space Statin stays much as it did before the shutdown, with astronauts accompanying a variety of scientific trials and public-outreach effort. Recently, astronaut of NASA, Anne McClain conducted a Q&A related to the orbits with students from a school in Dickinson, Texas, that is termed after flight director of NASA, Gene Kranz. McClain responded a variety of questions, from the nature of the research completed aboard the ISS to the kind of training rocketeers have to whether your ears pop in planetary.
And then, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule lamented the circling lab for Earth, finally wallowing down in the Pacific Ocean. The robotic Dragon carried down significant systematic research and hardware for inspection here on terra firma. Then there are the lively space missions. NASA investigation continues to gather information in Earth track and at the moon, Jupiter, Mars, and beyond. The OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft glided into orbit round the neighboring Earth asteroid Bennu throughout the shutdown, on December 31. And a day after, the New Horizons investigation dragged off the most distant space flyby of all time, increasing previous the minor object Ultima Tule more than four billion miles from Earth. Planetary fans must all hope that the shutdown ends shortly.