Congress is not on board with President Donald Trump's deep NASA budget cuts.
The White House allocated just $18.8 billion to the space agency — a 24% decrease from the previous year's funding — in its 2026 federal budget request, which was released last spring. The cuts were particularly harsh toward NASA's science portfolio, which was given just $3.9 billion — a drop of about 75%.
However, the federal budget request is just that: a request. Congress controls the nation's purse strings, and lawmakers just threw NASA a lifeline.
On Monday (Jan. 5), the House of Representatives and the Senate released a budget plan that would give the agency $24.4 billion in fiscal year 2026, which started on Oct. 1.
Much of the restored funding would go to NASA science programs.
"The bill rejects the administration’s devastating proposal to cut NASA Science by 47% and terminate 55 operating and planned missions. It instead provides $7.25 billion," a Senate bill summary states.
The budget plan is not the last word, however. The House and the Senate still need to vote on the bill — actions that could take place as soon as this week and the week after, respectively, according to Ars Technica's Eric Berger. President Trump would then need to sign it.
The restored science funding includes $500 million for the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's huge moon Titan. Dragonfly, which is targeting a 2028 launch, will use a rotorcraft to search for intriguing prebiotic chemicals on Titan, the only world beyond Earth known to harbor stable liquid on its surface.
The bill also provides $300 million to finish work on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which could launch as soon as this fall to study dark energy and galaxy and star formation.
But a very big-ticket NASA campaign does not get a reprieve: The bill doesn't support the current construction of Mars sample return, an effort that has suffered multiple delays and cost overruns over the years.
If the agency wants to bring home pristine pieces of the Red Planet — which have already been collected by the Perseverance rover — it will likely have to come up with a new way to do so.
