Does "major telescopes" mean "major (research) areas"?

Context:

Shutdown!

The slow decline of US federal support for research and development — spending is already down 16.3% since 2010— reached a new nadir in October, when political brinkmanship led the government to shut down for 16 days. Grant money stopped flowing; work halted at major telescopes, US Antarctic bases and most federal laboratories; and key databases maintained by the government went offline. Many government researchers were declared ‘non-essential’ and barred by law from visiting their offices and laboratories, or even checking their official e-mail accounts. Since the shutdown’s end, grant backlogs and missed deadlines have scrambled agency workloads.