The shuttering of the federal government has resulted in NASA shutting down almost completely — but for the time being at least, the Mars Curiosity rover won't be affected. A spokesperson for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which operates both Curiosity and the older Spirit rover, has clarified to International Business Times that JPL is a private contractor owned by the California Institute of Technology. As such, its personnel aren't among the 17,701 NASA employees that were furloughed today after the US Congress was unable to pass a funding bill. That means at the moment Curiosity will continue to operate as scheduled, even if its Twitter account has gone offline.
Still, that doesn't mean the rover couldn't run into issues should...
via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/1/4792742/mars-curiosity-rover-to-continue-operation-despite-federal-government-shutdown
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