The US Congress has agreed on the final version of the NASA funding bill for 2026. It rejects the sharp cuts in research spending proposed by Donald Trump’s administration.
In the spring of 2025, the US administration published NASA’s draft budget for the following year. Many experts and scientists described it as a disaster. The document provided for a reduction in spending on science by almost 50%, as well as the closure of dozens of ongoing space missions. Its adoption could have dealt an irreparable blow to space research, the consequences of which would have been felt for many years to come.
But in the end, Congress refused to take such radical measures, which was clearly influenced by pressure from the scientific community. On January 5, the agreed text of the document entitled Minibus was published. It combined the documents developed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and determined the final amount that NASA would receive.
Minibus allocates $24.438 billion to NASA for fiscal year 2026, slightly less than the $24.875 billion the agency received in 2024 and 2025. By comparison, the White House proposal allocated only $18.8 billion.
The document rejects most of the proposed cuts to NASA’s science programs, allocating $7.25 billion compared to $7.33 billion in 2025. Space technology will receive $920.5 million, which is less than the $1.1 billion in 2025, but much more than the $569 million proposed by the White House. Space operations, including the ISS and support for commercial space stations, will receive $4.175 billion, compared to $4.22 billion in 2025.
Funding for manned deep space exploration is below the administration’s request of more than $8.3 billion, but slightly above current levels. Funding for the Gateway lunar orbital station project will also continue. The bill cuts funding for some administrative and infrastructure projects, but rejects a proposal to cancel general education programs.
As for interplanetary missions and space telescopes that were threatened with cancellation, most of them would be preserved. A notable exception is the Mars Sample Return mission, which involved bringing Martian soil back to Earth. It significantly exceeded the budget, and there had been talk of canceling it in its current form for a long time. The Veritas Venus mission project is also likely to be canceled. The fate of the Chandra X-ray telescope and the Juno probe exploring Jupiter remains uncertain.
As for other priorities, $250 million is earmarked for the Fission Surface Power program, which aims to develop a nuclear reactor for a lunar base by 2030. The document also provides for the allocation of $110 million to $120 million for a nuclear thermal propulsion system and up to $50 million for a nuclear electric propulsion system.
Thus, overall, the aerospace administration will have to continue working as usual in the new year. However, it remains unclear how NASA is going to bring back the employees it laid off last year, when it was assumed that its budget would be drastically reduced.
According to Spacenews
