The Trump budget proposed by NASA may expel the agency’s most breathed missions

The US administration offers a reduction of $ 6 billion for NASA’s budget for next year, with the cornerstones of the agency’s program and its ambitious plan for returning rock samples from Mars.

President Donald Trump’s administration released The so -called skinny budget on Friday, outlining the proposed funding for NASA fiscal year for 2026. The proposed budget emphasizes “the goals of the administration to return to the moon before China and put a man on Mars.” In this way, it will remove the NASA (SLS) spacecraft launch rocket and its Orion capsule, replacing them with commercial substitutes and terminating the lunar gateway of the cosmic station within the framework that will be the first to go around the moon. The budget will also return the NASA Mars Sample in an attempt to “end the inaccessible missions.”

NASA has taken a lot of heat because of its massive, completely spent a lunar rocket, pouring billions into SLS before Acknowledging that it is eventually inaccessibleS The 5.75 million pounds of rocket was built with the help of components from the NASA space shuttle program, which takes place from 1981 to 2011. This is a capable rocket with heavy lifts, which, unfortunately, costs wealth. SLS already has $ 6 billion has disappeared above the budgetAs the estimated price of any SLS rocket is $ 144 million more than expected. This would increase the total cost of a start of Artemis to at least $ 4.2 billion, according to a report Issued in May by the service of the NASA General Inspector.

Trump’s close ally, Rocket billionaire Elon Musk, has spoken Against the use of SLS for upcoming artemis missions, criticizing the concept for its complete lack of reuse. Jared Isaacman, nominated for NASA administrator, is also not a fan of SLS, reference to him as “outrageously expensive.”

“The budget funds a program to replace SLS and Orion flights to the moon with more profitable trading systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions,” the budget proposal said. The rocket, which is the closest to the fact that it is suitable for the work, will probably be the Star Ship of SpaceX.

Orion’s capsule ended a subtle trip to the moon and back in November 2022 for NASA’s Artemis 1 mission and is expected to wear a crew in April 2026 for Artemis 2. Despite some Problems with the heat shield and hatch on the capsuleHe performed well during his first movement. However, the budget proposal suggests that Orion will be replaced after Artemis 3.

Although Artemis was conceived during Trump’s first term to return the people to the moon for the first time from Apollo, the program is torn apart by the first budget of the administration. Another probable victim of the Artemis program is Lunar gatewayA space station designed to tour the moon and support current missions through research.

The budget proposed is a 24% reduction in NASA $ 24.8 billion for 2025. The majority of space agency programs will undergo a budget reduction, except for the NASA human area exploration budget, which has received an additional $ 647 million on the 2025 budget, since the administration is left focus. Mars. The Trump administration has allocated more than $ 7 billion to survey the lunar and an additional $ 1 billion in new investments for programs focused on Mars.

Mars Sample Return (MSR), NASA’s sophisticated Red Planet Sampling Plan was not so lucky. The budget proposal has cited the mission as “rude super -budget and whose goals will be achieved by human missions to Mars.” NASA is struggling to come up with a way to get MSR to work, but the mission has been affected by expenditure and delaying planning. The mission was initially limited to a $ 7 billion budget to return the samples in the 2030s. However, it was later revealed that MSR requires a budget of $ 11 billion, assessing the return of samples by 2040 in the light of a report Issued in 2023, NASA begins Given alternative architecture for your complex mission But the agency has not yet created a solid plan for MSR.

The budget also offers a reduction in the size of the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) before its planned retirement in 2030, when it is expected to be replaced by a sales space station and a possibly numerous commercial space stations. “The crew and load flights to the station will be significantly reduced,” the budget proposal said. “The reduced research capacity of the station will focus on efforts critical of the moon and Mars exploration programs.”

NASA expects serious cuts for the Trump budget and the proposed allocation of funds has been set as many as the agency’s critical programs in the Cutting Council, losing years of research and funding and instead chose a commercial alternative.