NASA’s Deep Space Mission Control Center is empty for the first time in six decades as wildfires rage in Los Angeles.

The wildfires currently burning in areas of Southern California are not only visible from space, they threaten the work of scientists in Space, as well.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had to be in Pasadena They were evacuated on January 8 It remained closed until Monday due to the encroaching Eaton Fire. The research center has so far escaped the fire. Despite the emergency Some JPL data processing was disrupted According to social media posts, this greatly impacted the JPL community, and the Deep Space Network was able to maintain contact with all of its active spacecraft throughout the evacuation.

JPL “was untouched by the fire because of the courageous dedication of our first responders. “But our community was extremely seriously affected as more than 150 JPL students lost their homes and many others were displaced,” said Lori Lishin, director of JPL. Posted by X Friday. A JPL Facebook official confirmed this grim situation on comment Sunday. Most employees were asked to work from home this week, and officials began a relief fund For the Caltech and Jet Propulsion Laboratory communities.

to update: @NASAJPL It was untouched by fire because of the brave dedication of our first responders. But our community has been very seriously affected with over 150 JPLers losing their homes and many others displaced. Please consider providing support here: https://t.co/PGpNj2Z1Zf

– Laurie Lishin (@LaurieofMars) January 10, 2025

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded robotic space exploration laboratory operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) on behalf of NASA. It is also home to the agency Deep Space Network (DSN), a network of giant radio antennas used to communicate with space missions. NASA’s DSN was established in the late 1950s and early 1960s and currently maintains contact with the Voyager probes, the Mars rovers, and the Juno orbiter around Jupiter. The Space Flight Operations Center at JPL has been “operating and staffed daily since 1964.” According to To NASA.

According to Eviction notice “JPL facilities, laboratories and instrumentation have been secured and protected,” it was posted on the laboratory’s website on Wednesday. “Deep Space Network operations, normally conducted at JPL, have been moved off-site to a backup operations center. In some good news, the DSN team has maintained To communicate with his spacecraft throughout the evacuation process, according to Space.com website.

“Our amazing DSN team did everything they could to ensure no piece of data was lost,” NASA associate administrator Nicola Fox said during the 245th meeting of the American Astronomical Society held this week in Maryland. Space.com website. “It was very emotional, because it was the first time in 60 years that no one was in the mission control office there at JPL, because they had to move to the emergency center.”

Unfortunately, the evacuation of the research center led to some of these events Data processing disordersincluding some Near real time NRT data (information available shortly after it is recorded by a space instrument), and data from Passive active soil moisture The SMAP platform, which regularly measures topsoil conditions, and data from Microwave terminal probe (MLS), which measures atmospheric properties twice daily.

While the fact that JPL was not damaged is a relief to the scientific community, it remains to be seen how the laboratory will perform with strong dry winds. It is expected to continue until Wednesday.