NASA closes doors to 15,000 employees as US government shutdown begins

More than 15,000 NASA civil servants have been furloughed as the U.S. federal government enters a shutdown.

The grinding halt forces NASA and other agencies to scale back nearly all of their day-to-day operations after lawmakers in Washington D.C. failed to pass a government funding bill by the deadline. Only a fraction of NASA's workforce remains on duty, assigned to missions that cannot be paused without risking astronaut safety, critical hardware, or the Trump administration’s highest priorities.

With most science programs and public-facing activities frozen, the shutdown leaves NASA in a holding pattern until Congress approves new funding.

NASA's updated shutdown plan, released Sept. 29, outlines how the agency will operate during the funding lapse, and confirms the scale of furloug