Trump administration moves to tighten the noose around NASA science missions

Summary

The space agency has 124 science missions in development, prime operations, or extended operations. Effectively, the proposed cuts would cancel 41 of these missions, and another 17 would see their funding zeroed out in the near future. Nearly half of NASA's science missions would therefore end, and dozens more would receive budget cuts of 20–40 percent. This includes some high-profile casualties, including NASA's only mission at Jupiter, an effort to explore an asteroid that will fly extremely close to Earth in 2029, two promising missions to Venus, and an effort to return samples from Mars. "We would be turning off some fabulous missions that are doing extremely well," said Jim Green, a physicist who led NASA's Planetary Science Program for 12 years before his retirement in 2022. Normally, after the White House proposes a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, it is considered by appropriators in Congress responsible for setting funding levels and publishing a budget. However, in recent years, Congress has been unable to agree upon a budget and pass it before the beginning of the next fiscal year. This has led to a "continuing resolution" in which, generally, NASA missions continue to receive funding consistent with budget levels set during the previous fiscal year. However, multiple sources indicated to Ars that may not happen this year, and the new memos offer an important clue in this regard. Making missions go dark The memos were sent to the principal investigators of the missions that the White House budget seeks to cancel. On one hand, it is prudent to have a plan of action in place should these missions actually be canceled due to a new budget, assuming one is in place by October 1. It is NASA's job to execute the budget it is given. But there very likely is a more cynical plan at play here. The Office of Management and Budget, led by Russ Vought, has been seeking to cut the US government's science portfolio across the board, and it fully expects a continuing ...