Trump administration could slash NASA science budget by 50%, reports suggest

This photo shows the Optical Telescope Assembly for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which was recently delivered to the largest clean room at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Reports circulating about the White House's proposed NASA budget for the 2026 fiscal year suggest the agency's funding could be slashed by nearly half.

As reported by Ars Technica, so-called "passback" documents given to the agency on Thursday (April 10) outline these Trump administration budget plans. Besides an almost 50% cut across the board for NASA science programs, they propose a "two-thirds cut to astrophysics, down to $487 million; a greater than two-thirds cut to heliophysics, down to $455 million; a greater than 50% cut to Earth science, down to $1.033 billion; and a 30 percent cut to Planetary science, down to $1.929 billion."