Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on science and technology

On 4 May 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) organised a telethon to raise US$8 billion from forty countries to support rapid development of vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infections,[7] also announcing deployment of an international "Solidarity trial" for simultaneous evaluation of several vaccine candidates reaching Phase II-III clinical trials.[8] The "Solidarity trial for treatments" is a multinational Phase III-IV clinical trial organised by the WHO and partners to compare four untested treatments for hospitalised people with severe COVID-19 illness.[9][10] The trial was announced 18 March 2020,[9] and as of 21 April, over 100 countries were participating.[11] The WHO is also coordinating a multiple-site, international randomised controlled trial—the "Solidarity trial for vaccines"[8][12]—to enable simultaneous evaluation of the benefits and risks of different vaccine candidates under clinical trials in countries where there are high rates of COVID-19 disease, ensuring fast interpretation and sharing of results around the world.[8] The WHO vaccine coalition will prioritize which vaccines should go into Phase II and III clinical trials, and determine harmonised Phase III protocols for all vaccines achieving the pivotal trial stage.[8]

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)—which is organising a US$2 billion worldwide fund for rapid investment and development of vaccine candidates[13]—indicated in April that a vaccine may be available under emergency use protocols in less than 12 months or by early 2021.[14]

United States Department of Energy federal scientific laboratories such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have closed all its doors to all visitors and many employees, and non-essential staff and scientists are required to work from home if possible. Contractors also are strongly advised to isolate their facilities and staff unless necessary. The overall operation of the ORNL remains somewhat unaffected.[15]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been tasked by the White House Coronavirus Task Force to utilize most of its supercomputing capability for further research of the virus stream, possible mutations and other factors; while temporary reducing other projects or delaying them indefinitely.[16]

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory has closed all six sites across Europe (Barcelona, Grenoble, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Hinxton and Rome). All of EMBL's host governments have introduced strict controls in response to the coronavirus. EMBL staff have been instructed to follow local government advice. A small number of staff have been authorised to attend the sites to provide an essential service such as maintenance of animal facilities or data services. All other staff have been instructed to stay at home. EMBL has also cancelled all visits to sites by non-staff groups. This includes physical participation in the Courses and Conferences programme at Heidelberg, the EMBL-EBI Training courses, and all other seminars, courses and public visits at all sites. Meanwhile, the European Bioinformatics Institute is creating a European COVID-19 Data Platform for data/information exchange. The goal is to collect and share rapidly available research data to enable synergies, cross-fertilisation and use of diverse data sets with different degrees of aggregation, validation and/or completeness. The platform is envisaged to consist of two connected components, the SARS-CoV-2 Data Hubs organising the flow of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak sequence data and providing comprehensive open data sharing for the European and global research communities, and one broader COVID-19 Portal.[17][18][19]

The World Meteorological Organization expressed concern about the pandemic's effects on their observation system. Observations from the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay programme, which uses in-flight measurements from the fleets of 43 airlines, were reduced by 50% to 80% depending on region. Data from other automated systems was largely unaffected, though the WMO expressed fears that repairs and maintenance may be affected. Manual observations, mostly from developing countries, also saw a significant decrease.[20]

The need for accelerating open scientific research made several civil society organisations to create an Open COVID Pledge[21][22] asking to different industries to release their intellectual property rights during the pandemic to help find a cure for the disease. Several tech giants joined the pledge.[23] The pledge includes the release of an Open COVID license.[24] Organisations that have been longtime advocates for Open Access, such as Creative Commons, implemented a myriad of calls and actions to promote open access in science as a key element to combat the disease.[25][26] These include a public call for more open access policies,[27] and a call to scientists to adopt zero embargo periods for their publications, implementing a CC BY to their articles, and a CC0 waiver for the research data.[28] Other organisations questioned the current scientific culture, making a call for more open, public science.[29]

For coronavirus studies and information that can help enable citizen science through open science, many more online resources are available through other open access and open science websites, including portals run by the Cambridge University Press,[30] the Europe branch of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition,[31] The Lancet,[32] John Wiley and Sons,[33] and Springer Nature.[34]

The James Webb Space Telescope's launch has been delayed to Oct 31, 2021

Components of the Space Launch System

NASA announced the temporary closure of all its field centre visitor complexes until further notice, as well as requiring all non-critical personnel to work from home if possible. Production and manufacture of the Space Launch System at the Michoud Assembly Facility was stopped,[55][56] and further delays to the James Webb Space Telescope are expected,[57] though as of 3 June 2020 work has resumed.[58]

The majority of personnel at the Johnson Space Center transitioned to teleworking while, and International Space Station mission critical personnel were instructed to reside in the mission control room until further notice. Station operations are relatively unaffected, but new expedition astronauts face longer and stricter quarantines before flight.[59]

NASA's emergency response framework has varied depending on local virus cases around its agency field centres. As of 24 March 2020, the following space centres had been escalated to stage 4:

• Glenn Research Center in Ohio
• Plum Brook Station in Ohio
• Armstrong Flight Research Center in California
• Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia
• Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York
• Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, who also reported its first case of an employee testing positive for COVID-19.

Two facilities were held at stage 4 after reporting new coronavirus cases: the Michoud Assembly Facility reporting its first employee testing positive for COVID-19, and the Stennis Space Center recording a second case of a member of the NASA community with the virus. The Kennedy Space Center was held at stage 3, after one member of the workforce tested positive. Due to mandatory telework policy already in effect, the individual had not been on site for over a week prior to symptoms. On May 18, the Michoud facility began to resume SLS work operations, but so far remains in a state of level 3.[60]

At stage 4, mandatory telework is in effect for all personnel, with the exception of limited personnel required for mission-essential work and to care-take and maintain the safety and security of the facility.[61]

The European Space Agency has ordered many of its science and technology facilities' workforce to also telework as much as possible.

Recent developments, including strengthened restrictions by national, regional and local authorities across Europe and the first positive test result for COVID-19 within the workforce at the European Space Operations Centre, have led the agency to restrict on-site personnel at its mission control centres even further.

ESA's Director of Operations - Rolf Densing, has strongly recommended mission personnel to reduce activity of scientific missions, especially on interplanetary spacecraft.

The affected spacecraft are currently in stable orbits and long mission durations, so turning off their science instruments and placing them into a largely unattended safe configuration for a certain period will have a negligible impact on their overall mission performance.

Among the affected missions are:

• Cluster – A four-spacecraft mission launched in 2000, orbiting Earth to investigate our planet's magnetic environment and how it is forged by the solar wind, the stream of charged particles constantly released by the Sun;
• ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter – Launched in 2016, the spacecraft is in orbit around Mars, where it has been investigating the planet's atmosphere and providing data relay for landers on the surface;
• Mars Express – Launched in 2003, the workhorse orbiter has been imaging the Martian surface and sampling the planet's atmosphere for over one and a half decades;
• Solar Orbiter – ESA's newest science mission, launched in February 2020 and currently en route to its science operations orbit around the Sun.

ESA's Director of Science - Günther Hasinger, commented: "It was a difficult decision, but the right one to take. Our greatest responsibility is the safety of people, and I know all of us in the science community understand why this is necessary".

The temporary reduction in personnel on site will also allow the ESOC teams to concentrate on maintaining spacecraft safety for all other missions involved, in particular, the Mercury explorer BepiColombo, which is on its way to the innermost planet in the Solar System and will require some on-site support around its scheduled Earth flyby on 10 April.

The challenging manoeuvre, which will use Earth's gravity to adjust BepiColombo's trajectory as it cruises towards Mercury, will be performed by a very small number of engineers and in full respect of social distancing and other health and hygiene measures required by the current situation. Commissioning and first check-out operations of scientific instruments on the recently launched Solar Orbiter, which had begun last month, have been temporarily suspended.

ESA expects to resume these operations in the near future, in line with the development of the coronavirus situation. Meanwhile, Solar Orbiter will continue its journey towards the Sun, with the first Venus flyby to take place in December.[62]

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) space and science operations largely remain unaffected. However all visitors to their numerous field centres were suspended until April 30, 2020 to reduce contamination.[63][64]

Bigelow Aerospace announced on 23 March 2020, that it was laying off all 88 of its employees. It has said it would hire workers back when restrictions imposed by the pandemic are lifted.[65] World View based in Tucson, Arizona announced on 17 April 2020 that it had halted new business initiatives and furloughed an unstated number of employee in order to reduce cash outflow. The company had also received rent deferments from Pima County, Arizona.[66]

OneWeb filed for bankruptcy on 27 March 2020, following a cash crunch amidst difficulties raising capital to complete the build and deployment of the remaining 90% of the network. The company had already laid off approximately 85% of its 531 employees, but said it will maintain satellite operational capabilities while the court restructures it and new owners for the constellation are sought.[67][68]

Rocket Lab temporarily closed its New Zealand launch site but operations continue at its Wallops Flight Facility launch complex.[69]

Larger companies such as SpaceX and Boeing remain somewhat economically unaffected, apart from extra safety precautions and measures for their employees to limit the spread of the virus in their workplaces. As of April 16, Blue Origin stated that it was continuing with its hiring of staff, growing by around 20 each week.[70] ULA implemented an internal pandemic plan. Whilst some aspects of launch related outreach were scaled back, the company made clear the intention to maintain its launch schedule.[71]