India, March 12 -- NASA's chief scientist Katherine Calvin is among the 23 people laid off from the US space agency as part of President Donald Trump's administrative actions.

More job cuts are expected to happen, news agency AFP reported, citing a NASA spokesperson.

The NASA layoffs may signal a shift away from research and toward exploration since both Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk support a human mission to Mars, with Trump declaring in his State of the Union address last week that the US would "plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond".

Calvin is also a renowned climatologist who has contributed to key UN climate reports.

However, she as well as other US delegates were barred from attending a major clima...