{"id":43669,"date":"2025-10-29T22:15:31","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:15:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-races-to-keep-artemis-ii-on-schedule-even-when-workers-arent-being-paid\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:15:31","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:15:31","slug":"nasa-races-to-keep-artemis-ii-on-schedule-even-when-workers-arent-being-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-races-to-keep-artemis-ii-on-schedule-even-when-workers-arent-being-paid\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA races to keep Artemis II on schedule, even when workers aren\u2019t being paid"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been nearly one month since many parts of the federal government shut down after lawmakers missed a budget deadline at the end of September, but so far, NASA\u2019s most critical operations have been unaffected by the political impasse in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

That may change soon. Federal civil servants and NASA contractors are not getting paid during the shutdown, even if agency leaders have deemed their tasks essential and directed them to continue working. Jobs classified as essential include employees operating and safeguarding the International Space Station and NASA\u2019s fleet of robotic probes exploring the Solar System and beyond.<\/p>\n

Many employees at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida remain at work, too. Their job is to keep the Artemis II mission on schedule for launch as soon as next February. In the four weeks since the start of the government shutdown, crews at Kennedy Space Center have completed several major milestones on the road to Artemis II, including the stacking of the Orion spacecraft atop its Space Launch System rocket inside the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building. This milestone, completed about one week ago, capped off assembly of the SLS rocket for Artemis II.<\/p>\n

The Artemis II mission will be the first flight of astronauts on the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket. During their 10-day mission, the astronauts will test the Orion crew capsule and fly around the far side of the Moon before returning to Earth. The mission will lay the groundwork for future crew missions to land on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll work on Artemis II is excepted to protect both the property and to protect against risks to the crew introduced by unplanned close out and restart,\u201d a NASA official told Ars. \u201cAll of our contracts are funded into early November.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of Procurement has sent letters to contractors doing excepted work (including all the Artemis II contractors) indicating that work is authorized during the lapse in funding,\u201d the official said. \u201cMost workers have indicated a willingness to continue the work in the event of contract funding running out prior to the government reopening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working on borrowed time<\/h2>\n

Several months of work remain ahead for the Artemis II team to finish testing the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, complete training of the astronauts and flight control teams, and then transfer the entire 322-foot-tall (98-meter) launch vehicle out to Launch Complex 39B for a fueling demonstration and launch countdown.<\/p>\n

Thousands of workers across the country, primarily in Florida, Texas, and Alabama, are still reporting for duty to keep Artemis II\u2019s launch date early next year. In many cases, they\u2019re not getting their paychecks.<\/p>\n

Even while work continues, the government shutdown is creating inefficiencies that, if left unchecked, will inevitably impact the Artemis II schedule. Just look at what\u2019s happening with air traffic controllers across the United States as many of them are forced to take second jobs due to missed paychecks. The funding stalemate has contributed to widespread air traffic controller shortages and flight delays.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

NASA astronaut and Artemis II pilot Victor Glover speaks to the press during an Artemis media event in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 16, 2024.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Kirk Shireman, vice president and program manager for Orion at Lockheed Martin, said Tuesday that the shutdown initially created a \u201cnuisance\u201d for teams working on the Artemis II mission. But it won\u2019t be just a nuisance forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we\u2019re rapidly approaching the point where it will be a significant impact, and it\u2019s more to do with overall infrastructure,\u201d Shireman said in response to a question from Ars at the von Braun Space Exploration Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of you flew here,\u201d he said. \u201cI suspect if you weren\u2019t delayed coming here, you\u2019re probably going to be delayed going home, even in the airport going through TSA. Everything that affects people\u2019s lives is affected by the government, and when it\u2019s shut down, it\u2019s going to have its toll, and it\u2019s probably going to be these secondary impacts that ultimately do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Shireman has some experience with government shutdowns. He was a longtime NASA civil servant, rising in the ranks to become manager of the International Space Station program before retiring from government in 2020 and joining Lockheed Martin. In his time at NASA, Shireman shepherded the ISS program through a 35-day government shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019.<\/p>\n

The ISS program has always been exempted from past government shutdowns because NASA must keep the space station operating in order to protect the lives of the people living and working onboard. NASA has also exempted its other operating spacecraft, such as satellites and robotic deep space explorers, from past government shutdowns to protect the billions of dollars that taxpayers have committed to those missions.<\/p>\n

NASA hasn\u2019t always extended the same exemption to missions still on the ground preparing for launch, especially those without tight interplanetary launch windows. The Artemis II mission can launch on a handful of days each month when the positions of the Earth and the Moon are just right for the Orion spacecraft to complete its circumlunar voyage as designed.<\/p>\n

Therefore, losing a few days in the schedule would effectively delay the Artemis II launch by up to a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople, companies are not being paid. They have the ability to be reimbursed at some point in time,\u201d Shireman said. \u201cFortunately, I work for a large company that\u2019s capitalized, and we\u2019re going to be fine. But there are a lot of people, a lot of small companies\u2026 here in Huntsville and across the nation. They\u2019re not getting paid, and ultimately they\u2019re not going to be able to continue working.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat day is it going to hit here? I don\u2019t know. I really hope that we can find a way to get the government back up and running,\u201d Shireman said. \u201cIf anybody has any great ideas, please call your members of Congress today.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was updated with NASA\u2019s statement.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been nearly one month since many parts of the federal government shut down after lawmakers missed a budget deadline at the end of September, but so far, NASA\u2019s most critical operations have been unaffected by the political impasse in Washington, DC. That may change soon. Federal civil servants and NASA contractors are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}