NASA’s Budget Shrinks: Artemis Safe, Science Squirms

At long last, the saga of NASA’s 2024 budget has been resolved, four months into the year and more than seven months past the original Congressional due date.

The final number for this fiscal year is actually lower than what NASA was receiving under the 2023 Continuing Resolution, a rare (and unwelcome) development.

Astralytical repeatedly documented the risks that a  government shutdown could have had on NASA’s workforce, and thankfully this scenario did not come to pass. It is also clear that the crewed Artemis Moon return program has sufficient Congressional buy-in to survive almost any political budget maelstrom.

Yet the overall trendline is not positive for NASA’s topline funding number, and there are serious negative impacts unfolding in NASA’s non-Artemis portfolio.

NASA Budget Trends Increasingly Unfavorable

The 2024 Congressional budget cycle was not kind to NASA. The following summary from the Planetary Society highlights just how severe the budget cut is this year.

“Overall, NASA's topline amount had its worst performance between the requested amount and the final appropriated amount since 1992. The Biden Administration had proposed $27.2 billion for NASA's 2024 fiscal year, a 7.1% increase compared to 2023…A divided Congress, however…cut NASA's budget by 2% relative to the previous year, $2.3 billion less than the requested amount,” (Planetary Society).

The last few years have outlined a clear dynamic where Congress funds NASA at a level lower than the Biden Administration requests. This graph (courtesy of the Planetary Society) outlines this unfortunate reality.

Source: The Planetary Society 2024

The budget caps put into place in 2023 are digging deeper into NASA’s budget. After years of the Biden Administration offering modest to robust proposed increases that at least kept pace with inflation, the 2025 proposal is just a 2% increase.

According to the Planetary Society “...using NASA's own inflation data, the agency has already lost $1.7 billion in buying power between 2020 and 2024,” and the 2025 budget cycle is shaping up to exacerbate this trend.

This slowly tightening fiscal noose around NASA’s programmatic neck is beginning to have serious impacts on numerous key space science objectives.

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission has been subject to much Congressional angst, as Astralytical has documented previously. In early February, NASA’s cornerstone Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) cut hundreds of jobs in anticipation of budget cuts and putting the future of the mission in serious doubt. The budget passed in March instructs NASA to spend between $300 and $949 million on MSR while instructing the agency to lay off no more staff until reporting to Congress.

A NASA Inspector General audit report of the MSR program was released in March and contained some sharp warnings for the program. Major mission obstacles include “ongoing effects of questionable early architecture and design decisions..a 7-month delay in completing its Formulation Phase…acknowledgement that it will likely not meet its launch schedule of 2027…(and) significant growth in cost estimates,” (NASA OIG Report Pg. 16).

A March meeting of the House Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Technology demonstrated the volatile funding dynamic for MSR in Congress. Committee Chairman Brian Babin (R-TX) lauded the boldness of the MSR program but stated that “Consistent cost overruns and delays can result in other worthy missions being postponed or canceled and can create a reluctance for Congress to provide additional funding, or even approve such missions in the future,” (SpacePolicyOnline, March 21, 2024). Other members have been strenuous in their calls for NASA to fully fund MSR, a preview of more heated Congressional debate in the future.

NASA’s 2025 budget request leaves MSR as “TBD” (to be determined), a highly unusual budgetary practice, pending the agency’s review of the Inspector General’s report and a final budget determination. The following slide from a Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Town Hall in March highlights this strange dynamic.

Slide breaking down NASA’s FY 2025 budget request, including the unusual ‘TBD’ for the MSR program. Source: NASA.

Yet “NASA does not plan to request supplemental funding to cover MSR mission expenses. This would mean that any funding for MSR in FY25 and beyond would need to come from other programs within PSD to remain under the division funding level,” (AAS Yaswant Devarakonda, March 25, 2024). The SMD Town Hall (55 min.) referenced the “Outer Planets and Ocean Worlds” line item as one that is contingent on the MSR review.

The White House stated that "Given that the Mars sample return mission is a major part of part of NASA's planetary science budget, the budget enables NASA's internal assessment of mission architecture options to be completed to address mission cost overruns before providing more details for the $2.7 billion in planetary science budget," (Space.com, Elizabeth Howell, March 11, 2024).

NASA is expected to provide an update on the status of MSR today.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has promised to “fight” for the space agency’s 2025 budget, but warned that “partisan political gridlock” would continue to threaten the agency in the near future.

This extended budget turmoil for NASA has also created uncertainty for the broader American space economy as well. According to NASA Chief Economist Alexander MacDonald “Based on growth trajectories for public appropriations, we may not be able to forward all the demand signals that we want…How do we coordinate demand signals from different parts of the federal government in a way that’s consistent for long enough to give industry a chance to develop new capabilities?” (Payload Space, Jacqueline Feldscher, February 8, 2024).

Budgetary uncertainty will continue for NASA as 2025 budget negotiations begin. Mars Sample Return will remain a flashpoint and risks bursting the increasingly strained bubble that is NASA’s Planetary Science budget.

Yet planetary science is not the only area of NASA’s non-Artemis portfolio that is facing devastating budgetary choices.

Chandra Shutdown Travesty

The Chandra X-ray Observatory has operated nearly flawlessly since 1999 and offers an irreplaceably unique view into the deepest mysteries of the Universe, such as black holes. Chandra is a testament to NASA’s technological prowess and has revolutionized our understanding of the Universe. It offers humanity our best insight into powerful phenomena like black holes. There is no existing or planned telescope that can replace Chandra’s exquisite suite of instruments.

Artist’s depiction of the Chandra X-ray Observatory in orbit. Source: NASA

Yet Chandra is now at grave risk of being prematurely decommissioned because Congress (and now the White House) have simply cut too much from NASA’s science budget.

NASA budgeted $68.3 million for Chandra in 2023, with similar figures penciled in for the foreseeable future. Yet the 2025 proposal calls for funding to shrink to $5.2 million in 2029, effectively canceling the mission.

NASA’s reasoning for the funding cut states, “The Chandra spacecraft has been degrading over its mission lifetime to the extent that several systems require active management to keep temperatures within acceptable ranges for spacecraft operations. This makes scheduling and the post processing of data more complex, increasing mission management costs beyond what NASA can currently afford,” (MIT Dept. of Physics Karie Shen & Alex Tang, April 4, 2024).

The scientific community furiously disagrees and has launched a campaign to #SaveChandra, arguing that the telescope is operating perfectly fine and the loss of such a unique capability would be devastating. 

Data from SaveChandra.Org points out that on-target viewing efficiency with Chandra remains high and retains enough fuel for another decade of operation. Source: SaveChandra.Org

Real world impacts would include job losses at key institutions such as MIT, and could see the US cede leadership in x-ray astronomy to other scientific powers like Europe, Japan, and China.

The Director of the Chandra X-ray Center, Dr. Patrick Slane, pushed back vigorously on NASA’s budgetary and technical reasons for decommissioning the mission. He released an open letter after NASA’s budget was released, concluding that “we will continue to strongly make the case for the continued full support of Chandra, which the astrophysics community recognizes as a highly functioning facility that provides transformational science and crucial support to many of NASA's primary astrophysics goals,” (Dr. Patrick Slane, Chandra X-Ray Center).

Slane later told Space.com that “For scientists who rely on Chandra for their research, the mood is one of shock…but the energy to push back on this decision is high,” (Space.com, Monisha Ravisetti, March 25, 2024). The scientific community submitted an open letter with more than 87 pages of signatures to NASA calling on the agency to reverse its decision.

Chandra advocates are very clear on what is threatening this historic telescope:

“In the FY25 President’s Request, NASA’s overall budget has taken a 2% cut relative to its FY24 request, largely because of H.R. 3746 (the Debt Ceiling agreement of 2023), which places strong caps on non-defense discretionary spending. As such, nearly $1B has been cut from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in this year’s Request…This means that NASA Astrophysics leadership must make terrible, painful decisions in a zero-sum trade of cuts and investments,” (SaveChandra.Org).

Budget austerity policies from Washington are no longer abstract hypotheticals. They are very real and are beginning to cut away at the core, foundational Great Observatory missions that make NASA and the American space program truly exceptional.

Multiple Moves To Address Spaceport Bottleneck

There is other space-related news from Congress that is more uplifting than the budgetary sagas. Astralytical has previously documented the rising demand for US spaceport capacity and the potential chokepoints forming for domestic launch capabilities. There have been some notable moves inside and outside of Congress in the first few months of 2024 that aim to address the need for greater capacity in the US spaceport network.

On February 28th the bipartisan Secure US Leadership in Space Act of 2024 was simultaneously introduced in the House and Senate. If enacted, the bill “would amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow spaceports to issue tax-exempt municipal revenue bonds to fund infrastructure improvements,” (Space News, Feb. 28, 2024). This would grant spaceports the same ability that domestic airports and seaports have to finance necessary improvements.

The Space Force also announced in February that they are conducting the initial environmental studies that could lead to SpaceX Starship launches from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station complex. The study will explore both reusing existing launch pads as well as the option of building a new structure. The specific site is Space Launch Complex (SLC)-37, which has never launched crewed missions but currently serves as the launch pad for the Delta IV rocket from United Launch Alliance (ULA).

Delta IV rocket lifts off from pad SLC-37 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in 2006, the potential site of future Starship launches. Source: NASA.

This move comes after 2023 saw the Space Force allocate three launch complexes at Cape Canaveral to four separate private launch companies. Transferring SLC-37 to SpaceX would continue this trend, but there are only so many launch pads to redevelop before Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center are full.

There was also action on the regulatory front in Congress, with the bipartisan LAUNCH Act introduced in March. It would direct the FAA and the Department of Commerce to streamline the commercial launch process and provide greater support to industry to navigate the regulatory environment.

There are numerous positive signs that the United States is taking at least some measures to address the growing spaceport backlog.

Artemis Locked In As NASA Science Squirms

The Artemis program appears to have achieved what no crewed return proposal has achieved since Apollo: broad Congressional buy-in.

The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier summed it up perfectly during a March 27th AIA webinar, saying “The coalition that has formed behind Artemis has now successfully cleared two major hurdles that no other return-to-the-Moon program for humans has done. One was the presidential transition, which it cleared extraordinarily successfully…. And then now we have this first real test of budget. NASA’s shrinking. What happens to Artemis? Artemis grows. Not as much as they wanted … but much closer to the request,” (SpacePolicyOnline, Marcia Smith, March 30, 2024).

The now clearly obvious reality is that if NASA’s topline is shrinking and Artemis is growing, the non-Artemis portfolio is absorbing the loss.

Yet all is not doom and gloom. While some missions are delayed and others will be outright canceled, NASA still operates a massive fleet of robotic spacecraft operating in every corner of the Solar System. Milestone missions like the Dragonfly helicopter to Titan remain in the works and promise to join the ranks of heralded missions like Cassini, Galileo, and Viking.

Map of active and planned NASA Science missions across the Solar System. Source: NASA

Venus exploration perhaps best encapsulates the boom and bust for NASA science this budget cycle. It appears that the VERITAS mission has been resurrected from almost certain death, even if it is delayed until 2030.

The mission had appeared dead last year, victim to a series of unrelated project delays and cost overruns at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. VERITAS will be the first dedicated NASA mission to Venus since Magellan in the early 1990s and promises to revolutionize our understanding of our nearest neighbor. Yet the DAVINCI mission to Venus has now been delayed for two years to 2031 for purely short-term budgetary reasons.

The next five years are going to be gloriously painful for NASA and the space community. Humanity is returning to the Moon, with international astronauts set to walk the lunar surface alongside their NASA counterparts. A new era of lunar exploration is coming and it will change our entire society.

Yet Congressional dysfunction has created a toxic budgetary environment, and NASA is not immune to this chaos. Non-Artemis work at NASA is bearing the brunt of the fiscal ax, with the beleaguered Mars Sample Return as the 800-pound budget gorilla in the room.

Great missions will still be achieved, but painful choices are multiplying for the American space program.

The space community should prepare for a wild ride.

Patrick Chase is a space writer, political junkie, and lifelong space enthusiast.

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