Cosmonautics of the United States

Main article: Cosmonautics USA

Financing

Share of NASA's budget in the US federal budget

Lunar program

Main article: US Lunar Program

History

2026: Budget cut by 25% to $18.8 billion

On May 2, 2025, the presidential administration USA Donald Trump published a draft budget for 2026. It involves reducing costs in a number of areas, including ensuring the activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The document says that a total of $18.8 billion will be allocated for the implementation of NASA programs. This is about a quarter less than in 2025, for which funding was approved in the amount of $24.8 billion.

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Фото: yahoo.com

In the field of space sciences, the budget is planned to be reduced by $2.27 billion by reducing support for low-priority and high-cost research projects, including an initiative to deliver rock samples from Mars. The released resources of the Trump administration intends to partially direct to accelerate the implementation of manned missions to the moon and Mars.

In the field of earth sciences, expenses will be reduced by $1.16 billion. In particular, funding for low-priority climate monitoring satellites has been abolished. In the direction of space technology, costs on an annualized basis will decrease by $531 million. Mission support costs will be reduced by $1.13 billion: to achieve these goals, it is planned to optimize personnel structure, IT resources, NASA center operations, facility maintenance, as well as construction and other activities.

The budget of the ISS, as stated in the published document, will decrease by $508 million. It is expected to reduce the number of crew of the American segment of the space station and reduce the number of research carried out. At the same time, the focus of scientific programs will be shifted to projects that are critical for lunar and Mars exploration initiatives. In addition, the number of manned and cargo flights to the ISS will decrease.^[1]

2025

Lay off 30% of employees operating the Hubble Telescope. He turned out to be unnecessary

On November 19, 2025, it became known that it had Administration of the President of the United States Donald Trump reduced the number of personnel by more than a third. Goddard Space Flight Center This large NASA research laboratory, among other things, operates the Hubble Space Telescope.

According to Bloomberg, earlier more than 10 thousand people worked in the center of Goddard, which made it one of the largest divisions of NASA. However, by November 2025, the number of employees decreased to 6.6 thousand, which was notified in an internal email by the acting director of the center Cynthia Simmons. Thus, the laboratory staff decreased by about 34%.

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Фото: Reuters

According to Simmons, due to the reorganization, the complex is not fully used. NASA plans to lease part of the unclaimed space to other government agencies or partners. Some structures may be demolished "if they develop their service life."

Although we must preserve some resources, there are those that we can and should abandon, since they are available in the commercial sector, Simmons said.

NASA emphasizes that the reorganization of the Goddard Space Flight Center is part of a long-standing plan approved in 2019. It involves both dismantling old and building new facilities on campus. In addition to the Hubble telescope, scientific programs coordinated by the center include the Earth Observing System Earth , Solar Dynamics Observatory, OSIRIS-REx (automatic interplanetary station for delivering soil samples from the Bennu asteroid to Earth and studying the Apophis asteroid), MAVEN (automatic interplanetary station for atmospheric research), etc Mars.^[2]

Dismissal of a quarter of employees due to lack of funds in the US budget

The National Aeronautics and Space USA Administration will lose approximately 3,870 employees through a voluntary layoff program implemented as part of the presidential administration's policy Donald Trump to reduce the federal workforce. After the completion of the program, about 14 thousand civilian employees will remain in the space agency. This became known at the end of July 2025.

According to Bloomberg, the number of employees leaving the agency may change as applications are considered, including cases of withdrawal of an application by an employee or rejection of dismissal by management. NASA stressed that security remains the main priority when working to create a more optimized and efficient organization. The dismissal of staff occurs against the background of NASA budget cuts.

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Фото: Bloomberg

NASA offered employees two separate opportunities to leave the service in 2025 through the government's delayed layoffs program. The agency indicated that the expected number of remaining civil servants would be about 14 thousand people after both layoff programs, as well as the natural decline of about 500 people over the same period.

The first round of layoffs came early in the Trump administration, when federal workers received emails offering to take advantage of severance pay. This initiative was led by the Department of Government Efficiency under the leadership of Elon Musk. About 870 people, which is 4.8% of NASA's total, took advantage of this offer.

NASA initiated its own second round of delayed layoffs in early June 2025 with an application deadline of July 25. About 3,000 employees, or 16.4% of the total workforce, applied for the program.^[3]

Thousands laid off due to lack of money

In mid-July 2025, it became known that NASA was laying off more than 2 thousand of its high-ranking employees. This is due to the efforts of the American authorities to reduce budget expenditures.

According to Politico, NASA will reduce 2,145 people - these are employees in high-level leadership positions, as well as highly qualified specialists. In particular, it is planned to dismiss 875 top managers of the highest level. More than 1,800 of the reduced employees are involved in key NASA programs such as scientific research and manned space missions. The rest are responsible for supporting functions, including information technology, facility management and finance.

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Фото: Bloomberg

The Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland is expected to lose the most specialists - 607 people. The Johnson Space Center in Texas will lose 366 employees, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida - 311 people. At NASA headquarters in Washington, 307 workers will be laid off. The staff of the Langley Research Center in Virginia will decrease by 281 people. The Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will lose 279 people, the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland - 191 employees.

Experts believe that such large-scale reductions in the ranks of high-ranking NASA employees could negatively affect the implementation of important space programs, including manned flights to the moon and Mars. Astrophysicist Robert Rutledge notes that the reduction of more than 600 people at the Goddard Space Flight Center, "where the bulk of NASA's astrophysics resources are located," actually means that the United States will lose its long-term world leadership in the relevant field.^[4]

2024

NASA Data Center flooded. Servers storing data from satellites destroyed

In early December 2024, it became known that the Stanford Joint Center for Scientific Operations (JSOC) broke through a 100-mm pipe of the server liquid cooling system. Some of the equipment has been destroyed. Read more here.

NASA cancels multi-billion dollar contract with Maxar to develop technology to refuel withdrawn satellites due to non-compliance with deadlines and excessive costs

In March 2024, NASA canceled a multi-billion dollar contract with Maxar for the development of fueling technology for withdrawn satellites due to non-compliance with deadlines and excessive costs.

The idea itself has been in the heads of designers for a long time: it is the fuel reserves that most often determine the active life of the device - as they expire, it loses the ability to adjust the orbit and perform the target function. Therefore, the development of the "space refueling" technology will be able to significantly increase their operating time up to twofold growth. This is especially true for piece and expensive reconnaissance vehicles, which sometimes have to spend fuel for interorbital maneuvers.

In practice, however, it is not yet possible to implement the plan even with the involvement of private contractors: according to NASA representatives, Maxar underestimated the scale and complexity of the work, and also did not have a complete understanding of technical requirements and expert knowledge.

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