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A webcam at the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows two science missions in development. On the left is the instrument enclosure for the Near-Earth Object Surveyo, an infrared space telescope for a planetary defense mission. On the right is the Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths, a high-altitude balloon mission to carry a far-infrared telescope to study the impact of supernova explosions and other phenomena on star formation rates.
The Trump administration’s draft budget plan for fiscal 2026 includes deep cuts to NASA’s science programs as part of an overall 20% reduction in the agency’s annual spending, leaked documents from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to NASA show.
Whether the administration’s official budget release will actually retain the proposed 47% cut to NASA’s science portfolio, as outlined in OMB’s so-called “passback” budget, remains to be seen. If so, the budget cuts face an uphill battle in Congress.
“This will destroy America’s leadership in scientific research and innovation. It cannot happen,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat whose district includes NASA’s science-focused Goddard Space Flight Center, wrote on social media. “We will fight like hell to stop this assault on American innovation and leadership.”
Added Casey Dreier, chief of space policy with The Planetary Society, a nonprofit space advocacy organization: “If this happens, this will be nothing short of an extinction-level event for NASA’s science and exploration.”
If enacted, the budget could affect many NASA missions, including those in development, such as the campaign to return samples from Mars, as well as the flagship Nancy Grace Roman infrared space telescope, which is due to launch in two years.
Halting development of nearly every future science project at NASA would be “wasting billions of taxpayer dollars already spent on these projects, abandoning international and commercial partners, and surrendering U.S. leadership in space science to other nations,” The Planetary Society said in an April 11 statement.
The proposed spending plan also would force premature termination of dozens of active, productive spacecraft, the organization said. “These spacecraft are unique assets: their instrumentation and capabilities cannot be replaced without billions of dollars of new taxpayer investment. No commercial or private space companies can fill this gap,” it noted.
The draft budget would reduce NASA’s annual spending from $25 billion to about $20 billion. The bulk of the $5 billion cut would be borne by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, which would be scaled back from $7.3 billion to $3.9 billion.
The directorate funds NASA’s planetary exploration, astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth science and other programs. Reports of the preliminary passback budget were first posted on April 11 by Ars Technica, the day after NASA received the draft spending plan from OMB.
The plan reportedly cuts planetary science spending by 30% to $1.9 billion over fiscal 2025 levels; Earth science by more than 50% to $1 billion; heliophysics by 50% to $455 million and astrophysics by 66% to $487 million.
Operations of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes would continue, but the new infrared Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated to launch in May 2027, would be shelved. So would efforts to return samples that have been collected by the ongoing Mars Perseverance mission, which is the highest priority planetary science mission of the congressionally chartered U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The preliminary budget was presumably developed without input from Trump’s nominee to head NASA, Jared Issacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and pilot who has twice chartered private astronaut missions with SpaceX.
In his April 9 confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Isaacman called himself “an advocate for science.
“NASA will be a force multiplier for science,” Isaacman said in his opening comments. “We will leverage NASA’s scientific talent and capabilities to enable academic institutions and industry to increase the rate of world-changing discoveries. We will launch more telescopes, more probes, more rovers, and endeavor to better understand our planet and the universe beyond.”
A vote on Isaacman’s nomination is pending. The Trump administration is expected to release its 2026 spending plan in May.
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