47% cut to NASA science budget could terminate 41 missions and decimate workforce

Washington D.C. – Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, sweeping changes have echoed through the federal government. Diversity programs have been eliminated, international students face visa insecurity, and thousands of public servants have been abruptly laid off. Amid this upheaval, the nation’s science agencies—particularly NASA—are bracing for a historic redefinition.

NASA, long considered a symbol of American innovation, has emerged as a prime target in Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal. The administration’s plan calls for a 47% cut to the agency’s science funding and slashes roughly one-third of its workforce, reducing the headcount from more than 17,000 to under 12,000. If passed by Congress, the proposal would leave NASA with its smallest workforce since 1960, before the U.S. launched its first astronaut into space.

But the numbers tell only part of the story. The budget also calls for the outright cancellation of 41 space science missions. Among the most high-profile casualties would be the Mars Sample Return mission, which has already consumed years of planning and investment, and the OSIRIS-APEX mission, which was in the midst of a second asteroid encounter after successfully returning material from asteroid Bennu. Other missions, including Juno (orbiting Jupiter), New Horizons (exploring the outer solar system), and a suite of Earth-observing satellites, are also on the chopping block.

NASA’s commitment to international partnerships is also under threat. The U.S. would once again withdraw from the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin rover mission to Mars—an embarrassing repeat of a 2012 retreat, one that could weaken America’s credibility as a scientific collaborator.

The administration’s rationale appears to center on reorienting NASA’s mission toward a crewed mission to Mars. The budget allocates more than $1 billion for new technologies and $200 million for commercial Mars payload services. On paper, this pivot could be seen as ambitious. But critics argue that redirecting the majority of NASA’s resources toward a single long-term goal—particularly while gutting nearly every other research area—is reckless at best and counterproductive at worst.

The impact is not limited to space science. The proposed cuts would dismantle climate monitoring programs and green aviation initiatives. The closure of NASA’s Goddard Institute, which housed more than a century’s worth of climate data, and the layoffs of hundreds of NOAA employees have already signaled the administration’s approach to environmental science: deprioritize it.

Congressional leaders from both parties have expressed opposition. Lawmakers have signaled that the budget proposal is “dead on arrival,” with bipartisan caucuses calling out the steep reductions in science funding and the disruption of missions years in the making. Yet, due to legislative delays and the possibility of a continuing resolution, the White House could enact parts of the proposal by default—an outcome that might cause irreversible damage.

In its current form, the FY2026 budget threatens not only NASA’s operational capacity but the collaborative, long-term nature of scientific discovery itself. Many missions depend on continuity between administrations, and the proposed cuts risk unraveling decades of work and goodwill in a single fiscal cycle.