14 DAY TRIAL // The US government shutdown affected plenty of institutions, but perhaps none more so than NASA. The vast majority of its employees had to stay home and most missions and research was put on hold. Mission control and those needed to operate currently ongoing missions were kept, but everyone else was barred from working.
The shutdown endangered all future missions, particularly the upcoming MAVEN Mars orbiter launch. MAVEN is set to launch for Mars on November 18. But preparations for the launch were halted on October 1.
Thankfully, NASA was able to get approval to continue to allocate funds to the mission and work is already underway again. The situation is critical since Mars missions depend on the launch window.
If MAVEN can't be launched by December 7, it will have to wait a couple more years before the launch is possible again, due to the position of Mars relative to Earth.
The team lost three days of preparations which they'll have to makeup, but everyone is determined to get the probe, which is designed to study Mars' atmosphere, away.