By Mike Gruss
Let's start with the news: The federal government is shut down.
It's the first time since a five-week shutdown in January 2019.
What did those shutdowns mean for space? Here's a 2019 column from Jeff Foust. "For all the talk about the growth of the industry, the shutdown showed how dependent it remains on the government: sometimes for money, and other times for oversight," he wrote then.
But how about now? What does this shutdown mean for the space community? It's hard to fully encapsulate all the ways the U.S. government touches the space community. Consider licenses or approvals.
But here's one: NASA's contingency plan from this summer said that operations of the International Space Station and other spacecraft would continue in the event of a shutdown. "However, if a satellite mission has not yet been launched, unfunded work will generally be suspended on that project," the document states.
That's been important guidance for a NASA asteroid mission that has remained on schedule for a mid-October launch.
"Any halt to launch preparations could jeopardize its ability to launch during its three-week window, particularly if it faces other technical or weather delays," the latest story read.
And then there's all the ways a shutdown touches military space. I asked SpaceNews's Sandra Erwin for help on how to think about this.
What does the shutdown look like specifically for Space Force and the Pentagon more broadly?
Sandra Erwin: A government shutdown would hit the Space Force with the same blunt force affecting the rest of the military — troops working without paychecks, civilians furloughed, new programs frozen. But the service's heavy reliance on civilian contractors and launch range support staff makes it particularly vulnerable to launch disruptions that could ripple across both defense and commercial operations, depending on how long the shutdown lasts.
Active-duty Space Force personnel, like their counterparts across all services, would continue reporting for duty without pay until Congress and the White House cut a deal. They would eventually get back pay, as would essential civilians kept on the job. But non-essential workers would be sent home.
The service would keep the lights on for national security essentials — satellite operations, missile warning systems and the critical communications architecture that underpins U.S. military operations worldwide. High-priority programs flagged in recent Defense Department guidance, including missile warning upgrades, the Golden Dome initiative and space domain awareness efforts, would chug along using funds already appropriated through reconciliation bills.
And how could it hurt launch?
SE: The impact on launch operations at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Space Force Base could be significant if there is a protracted shutdown.
Military ranges depend heavily on civilian employees and contractors for everything from safety protocols to technical coordination. Mission-critical defense launches would get priority with skeleton crews, but everything else — commercial launches, non-emergency military missions, static fire tests, pre-launch operations — risks delay or cancellation if the shutdown drags on.
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