Another mission the White House wanted to cancel was THEMIS, a pair of spacecraft that orbited the moon to map the moon's magnetic field. The lead scientist for that mission, Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles, said his team will receive “partial funding” for fiscal year 2026.
“This is good, but in the meantime it means cutting scientific staff,” Angelopoulos told Ars. “The effect is that the US is not achieving the scientific returns it could get from its multibillion-dollar investments in technology.”
Artist's concept of NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014 and studying the planet's upper atmosphere.
To put a number on it, the missions already in space that the Trump administration wants to cancel represent a cumulative investment of $12 billion to design and build a science advocacy group, according to the Planetary Society. A review by Ars concluded that the operational missions that should have paid the cancellation fees cost taxpayers less than $300 million a year, or between 1 and 2 percent of NASA's annual budget.
Supporters of NASA's science program gathered at the U.S. Capitol this week to highlight the threat. Angelopoulos said the outcry from scientists and the public appears to be working.
“I view the implementation of the House budget as an indication that voter pressure is having an effect,” he said. “Unfortunately, damage has already been done. Even if funding is restored, we have already lost people.”
Some scientists worry that the Trump administration could try to withhold funding for certain programs even if Congress appropriates a budget for them. That would probably lead to a fight in court.
Bruce Jakosky, former principal investigator of the MAVEN Mars mission, expressed these concerns. He said it's a “positive step” that NASA is now making plans under the assumption the agency will receive the budget outlined by the House. But there's a catch.
“Even if the budget coming out of Congress is signed into law, the president has shown no reluctance not to spend money required by law,” Jakosky wrote in an email to Ars. “That means having a budget isn't the end all be all; and having the money distributed to the MAVEN science and ops team isn't the end all be all – only if the money is actually spent can we be sure that it won't be clawed back.
“That means uncertainty will be with us throughout the fiscal year,” he said. “That uncertainty will certainly cause morale problems.”
