NASA Planning for Unauthorized Shutdown of Carbon Monitoring Satellites

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For the previous month, the Trump administration, by way of NASA’s Acting Administrator Sean Duffy, has been directing NASA employees to implement workforce changes and plan for the shutdown of dozens of missions and packages slated for cuts beneath within the President’s Budget Request to NASA. Doing so forward of a Congressionally-approved finances for fiscal yr 2026 (FY26) is tantamount to unlawful impoundment of federal funds appropriated for the present fiscal yr (FY25), in accordance with an 18 July letter to Duffy signed by 64 members of Congress.

Now, regardless of warnings that their actions are unlawful, NPR reports that Duffy and different senior NASA officers have continued to secretly direct NASA staff to attract up plans to finish a minimum of two main satellite tv for pc missions particularly designed to watch international carbon dioxide. Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2, a free-orbiting satellite tv for pc, and OCO-3, which is hooked up to the International Space Station, are slated for defunding in the 2026 President’s Budget Request (PBR).

David Crisp, a retired NASA atmospheric physicist who was the principal investigator of the unique OCO mission and was OCO-2’s science group chief, instructed NPR that he was contacted by a number of NASA staff who requested him pointed questions in regards to the satellites that added as much as mission termination plans.

“What I have heard is direct communications from people who were making those plans, who weren’t allowed to tell me that that’s what they were told to do. But they were allowed to ask me questions,” Crisp stated. “They were asking me very sharp questions. The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan.” (Crisp can also be a Fellow of AGU, which publishes Eos.)

Two present NASA staff confirmed to NPR that NASA leaders have been instructed to make plans to terminate initiatives that may lose funding ought to Trump’s PBR be enacted. The staff, who requested anonymity, additionally instructed NPR that company management is in search of non-public backers to maintain the OCO satellites working ought to they lose federal funding.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatories have been designed particularly to watch and map the worldwide carbon finances, they usually have supplied priceless information in regards to the drivers of local weather change. The satellites additionally exhibited a shocking skill: monitoring plant growth. The mission has provided maps of photosynthesis all over the world which have proved priceless instruments for farmers and the agricultural business, together with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Experts warn that farmers may lose entry to these instruments if the satellites are privatized or decommissioned.

“Just from an economic standpoint, it makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data,” Crisp stated.

Budgets Pending

Both the Senate and House appropriations committees lately launched FY26 funding payments for NASA for consideration by Congress. The House does search to chop NASA’s total finances, although far lower than requested by the Trump administration. The House’s draft bill doesn’t break down appropriations by NASA’s subdivisions or packages, so there may be little details about whether or not OCO could be defunded ought to the House’s finances be adopted.

The draft budget from the Senate appropriations committee, which additionally doesn’t point out OCO by identify, nonetheless presents extra particulars about what funding they’d approve. Under that finances framework, NASA would obtain $24.9 billion whole (up from $24.8 billion in FY25). NASA’s Science Mission Directorate would lose a modest quantity of funding ($7.3 billion, down from $7.5 billion), and the Earth Science division, which operates OCO, would additionally lose some funds ($2.17 billion, down from $2.2 billion).

The Senate committee’s extra detailed clarification could make clear its plans for OCO and different Earth-observing missions:

• “The Committee rejects the mission terminations proposed in the fiscal year 2026 budget request for Earth Science, Planetary Science, Astrophysics, and Heliophysics.” That’s about as specific as they are often.
• “In advancing the U.S. national interest, NASA should seek, to the extent practicable, to retain public ownership of technologies, scientific data, and discoveries made using public funds.” This directive runs counter to NASA’s plans to denationalise satellites that Trump seeks to defund.
• “Earth Science missions could help to understand the efficacy of carbon dioxide removal proposals, including to track carbon stocks and carbon cycling in aboveground biomass and coastal marine ecosystems.” The committee acknowledges that Earth-observing satellites are necessary to the way forward for the planet.

Neither the House nor Senate appropriations payments have been taken up by both chamber of Congress. The payments nonetheless should be handed by their respective chambers, reconciled right into a single finances invoice that passes each chambers of Congress, and signed into regulation by the president earlier than FY25 ends on 30 September.

—Kimberly M. S. Cartier (@astrokimcartier.bsky.social), Staff Writer

Correction 5 August 2025: David Crisp’s place with NASA and his affiliation with AGU have been corrected.

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