Many scientists openly call NASA’s proposed 2026 budget, put forward by the current White House administration, a disaster. It involves a 47% reduction in funding for scientific programs. Over 40 space missions will be cut, and thousands of people will lose their jobs. Astronomy magazine has published several infographics on its website that provide a clear picture of the scale of the problem.
The first infographic is dedicated to missions that will be completely shut down or whose funding will be cut by 40% or more. The first category, marked with the letter X, includes the New Horizons probe traveling through the Kuiper Belt, the Juno spacecraft exploring Jupiter, the Mars Odyssey and MAVEN Mars orbiters, and the Mars Sample Return mission, which is supposed to bring samples of soil from the Red Planet back to Earth.
In addition to this, NASA will have to terminate its cooperation with ESA on the Rosalind Franklin Mars rover, which puts its implementation at risk, as well as a number of other projects. It is also planned to shut down the unique Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Missions whose funding will be significantly reduced are marked with an exclamation mark. Their list includes, for example, the new Roman infrared telescope, scheduled for launch next year, as well as several satellites studying our Earth.
The second infographic is dedicated to missions that will undergo a review process in 2026: a process during which NASA will decide whether to continue or cancel them. At this point, it is unclear how the proposed budget cuts will affect the results of these reviews. These missions are marked with a ^ symbol.
It should be noted that the final decision on NASA’s budget for 2026 will be made by Congress. The American scientific community hopes that they will oppose the mindless closure of space missions and save at least some of them.
According to Astronomy
