American government shut down, but JPL and APL planetary missions still operating -- for now
Last night I tweeted a link to an International Business Times story that contained false information regarding the status of the Curiosity rover. This post is an effort to remedy that. I spoke with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Veronica McGregor and the Applied Physics Laboratory's Geoff Brown this morning to get accurate information.
In brief: All of NASA's missions that are operated out of JPL and APL are continuing to operate normally today and for at least a week. At JPL, that includes: Curiosity; Opportunity; Odyssey; Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; Cassini; Dawn; Juno; Spitzer; the Voyagers; and WISE, among many others. At APL, that includes MESSENGER and New Horizons. It also includes the Deep Space Network, which JPL manages but which is subcontracted out to other entities for actual operation.
So, for people concerned about whether the Mars missions will be observing comet ISON as planned today, as it makes its closest approach to Mars: yes, that should continue, barring unforeseen problems.
How can NASA still operate these missions? Because these are not government facilities. JPL is privately run, by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and is under contract to NASA. APL is operated by Johns Hopkins University, also a contractor to NASA. As such, they have funds in the bank already to continue operating these missions for a while. Veronica told me that all missions across NASA are expected to be maintained during the shutdown, and that at JPL, people are today reporting to work as usual.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/10010929-shutdown-jpl-operating.html