Update, Oct. 4: The mission will go on. Planetary scientists behind the MAVEN Mars mission announced yesterday that they have received an exemption to the federal government shutdown. While most of NASA remains furloughed, MAVEN scientists can resume their plans to launch the explorer during its Nov. 18 to Dec. 7 window.

The government shutdown isn't just closing the doors of various federal agencies. Its effects could be felt even beyond our planet.

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, or MAVEN, is an orbiter planned to study the atmosphere of Mars to find out why that world lost the thick, Earth-like atmosphere it once had, leaving to the low-pressure whisp present there today. It will also study the chemical composition of the atmosphere, including the effects of solar wind, the number of stable isotopes in the atmosphere, and the rates of escape of certain gasses. Work has been under way since the probe was delivered to NASA in August to prepare the probe for a launch window coming up this November. The probe has sat in a sterile "clean room" and undergone numerous tests and fueling measures since. But because of the government shutdown that started today as a result of Congress's inability to approve a budget, MAVEN could be marooned here on Earth.

According to the Planetary Society, 97 percent of NASA's workforce will be furloughed during the shutdown, and no one knows how long it will last. The space agency's skeleton crew will be responsible for ensuring the most important operations, such as ensuring that the International Space Station crew remains safe and existing probes continue to function, though nobody will be around to analyze the spacecraft data until the shutdown ends. NASA websites, and the charming Twitter accounts that update the public on behalf of their missions, are down.

As for MAVEN, its launch window to reach Mars lasts from Nov. 18 through Dec. 7. Should the government shutdown cancel the launch, a new launch window will not open for another 26 months, leaving MAVEN a sitting duck for two years.

And if MAVEN does launch in 2016, it will be at diminished capacity: The probe would be working on reduced power because of the effect of solar cycles. Solar power is critical to the craft, whose solar arrays are designed like bird wings to help stabilize it during the five dips it will do into the Martian atmosphere while gathering data. Some projections estimate that sunspot activity in 2016 will be at an historic low, which will result in something akin to the Little Ice Age four centuries ago.

According to an anonymous NASA employee who posts on Tumblr under the username For All Mankind, if the shutdown lasts for "longer than a few days," then the damage will already be done to MAVEN. "A $650 million dollar mission will have to be put into storage until 2016, and the overall science output of the vehicle will be reduced significantly because of the solar cycle," he said.

This isn't the first time that a shutdown, or the threat of a shutdown, has jeopardized a NASA mission. In 2011, a shutdown was narrowly averted that, had it gone through, would have postponed the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavor. A 1995 shutdown left American astronauts on the space station Mir in the midst of the shutdown, with only essential employees at the home office and no office of public affairs to report on mission progress.

By coincidence, today marks NASA's the 55th anniversary. The birthday parties might be rather low-key this year: Only 549 employees are reporting to work.

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