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The Senate Appropriations Committee is currently engaged in markup of an appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS), and signs are that there’s bipartisan support to reject the Trump Administration’s proposed budget cuts to NASA.
“For NASA, the bill reflects an ambitious approach to space exploration, prioritizing the agency’s flagship program, Artemis, and rejecting premature terminations of systems like SLS and Orion, before commercial replacements are ready,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R – KS), chair of the CJS appropriations subcommittee. He added that the bill “protects key science missions.”
WaL previously reported that over a dozen major science missions, including extended phases of existing missions like Juno, and those currently in planning and production stages, like the two Discovery-class missions to Venus DAVINCI and VERITAS, would be zeroed out under the new budget.
“We rejected cuts that would have devastated NASA science by 47% and would have terminated 55 operating and planned missions,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D – MD) a ranking member of the subcommittee.
Overall, Space News reports, the budget would be more or less frozen at 2025 levels, around $25 billion. For comparison, the President’s 2026 request was for $18.7 billion.
On the House side, the Appropriations Committee released the CJS bill from a markup session on July 14th, with virtually the same overall budget as in the Senate version. Distributions were however significantly altered, as the exploration mission directorate stood to reach $9.3 billion, more even than what was requested in Donald Trump’s exploration-heavy 2026 request. ISS operational budgets would remain flat from 2025.
The House version would see the science mission directorate cut by several billion, but enough that major missions would be kept afloat. Aeronautics and space technology would both be cut compared to 2025 in order to fund exploration, but less than the cuts requested by the President. A provision in the President’s request to terminate the STEM Engagement program of NASA was approved.
The Senate version was set to be approved until an unrelated provision regarding the construction of a new FBI building being a sticking point for the committee, and a 21-6 vote was recast to a dead split. Seeing this, Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R – ME) called for an extended recess to settle the disagreement. WaL
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