INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has been sharing regular updates about how his agency is approaching the rapidly changing global
coronavirus pandemic situation
This week, NASA escalated its response multiple times due to changing circumstances, including changing the state of working conditions at
all of its facilities across the country
On Friday the agency summarized the current status of each of its facilities and major projects in a comprehensive update.
Work continues on
a few missions that are deemed critical, and on projects where remote and telework are possible
These include the Commercial Crew Program, which is set to return human spaceflight capabilities to American soil via private partners
Boeing and SpaceX are NASA partners for this program, and NASA says that this is going ahead despite the requirement of in-person
operations because it represents &a critical element to maintaining safe operations on the International Space Station and a sustained
United States presence on the orbiting laboratory.& SpaceX and NASA confirmed earlier this week that they still plan to launch the first
crewed Dragon mission to the ISS in mid to late May.
For the purpose of keeping ISS crew &fully supplied and safe,& NASA says that it will
continue to operate its commercial resupply missions, too, which ferry experiments, food, water and more to the space station using vehicles
including SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule
For similar reasons, it&ll keep open the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center, with flight control personnel in place, though it
adding &additional measures& to ensure the safety of those present.
Meanwhile, work on the James Webb Telescope in California is temporarily
suspended, which means the integration and testing that was happening in preparation for its planned launch next March
Preparations for NASA Mars 2020 launch, which includes its Perseverance rover and Mars Helicopter exploration vehicles also continue: that
mission is scheduled for July 2020.
There also virtual inspection work being done on the X-59 piloted supersonic test plane that being
developed in California, and Lockheed Martin, which is building the aircraft for the agency, is continuing in-person work on that project
NASA is keeping the lights on at Ames Research Center in California, too, in order to ensure that the agency IT security and supercomputing
operations can continue uninterrupted.
Existing spacecraft mission support will continue, as will astronaut training (which is generally
subject to strict isolation protocols to prevent illness anyway)
Earlier this week, the agency announced it would suspend work on the SLS spacecraft and the Orion capsule that will carry the fundamental
components of its Artemis program, which aims to get humans back to the Moon, and eventually to Mars
Artemis has been sticking to a stated 2024 time frame for its mission of returning people to the surface of the Moon, but these setbacks in
total represent the most sure sign yet that we&ll probably see that window slip, though many skeptical of the schedule have suggested it
would actually be later than that anyway.
