This Thursday, the Trump administration unveiled a draft budget proposal for fiscal year 2026, which includes substantial cuts to NASA’s funding. The proposed budget calls for a 20% reduction, amounting to $5 billion from the agency’s current $25 billion allocation.
The cuts primarily target NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, responsible for advancements in planetary science, Earth science, and astrophysics. This would result in a near 50% decrease in funding for science programs, reducing their allocation from $7.5 billion to $3.9 billion.
The draft budget outlines specific reductions, including a two-thirds cut to astrophysics, a 30% cut to planetary science, and more than a 50% reduction to Earth science.
Significant projects face termination as a result. These include the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an advanced observatory comparable to the Hubble and James Webb telescopes. Fully assembled and on budget for a 2027 launch, the telescope would be eliminated. Other casualties include the Mars Sample Return mission and the DAVINCI mission to Venus. The cuts could also lead to the closure of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, potentially displacing 10,000 employees.
While NASA’s acting administrator, Janet Petro, dismissed earlier reports of such cuts as unverified rumors, the newly revealed "Passback" document suggests otherwise. Critics, including lawmakers and science policy experts, have described these cuts as a potential “extinction-level” event for NASA’s science programs. These programs have delivered many of NASA’s most significant achievements over the last 25 years, such as the discovery of water on Enceladus, the New Horizons mission to Pluto, and the success of Ingenuity on Mars.
Congressman George Whitesides (D-California), a former NASA Chief of Staff, condemned the proposal in a statement to Ars Technica:
This massive cut to NASA Science will not stand. For weeks we have been raising the alarm about a rumored 50 percent cut to NASA's world-leading science efforts. Now we know it is true. I will work alongside my colleagues on the Science Committee to make clear how this would decimate American leadership in space and inflict great damage to NASA centers across the country.
While the draft budget serves as an initial proposal, it marks the beginning of a negotiation process between the administration and Congress. The final budget will be shaped through discussions in the House and Senate, which hold the authority to adjust the White House’s recommendations.
This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor.
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