NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) unexpectedly announced a “sale” of its spacecraft due to the closure of research missions as a result of budget cuts. Satellites for Earth observation, which helped to study the environment, predict hurricanes, and record the effects of climate change, were put up for auction. Most of them were launched in the last 20 years, so the spacecraft are not very old yet. The most surprising thing is that unused devices, such as the GLIMR coastal monitoring device, which has not even been launched into space yet, are included in the list.
The source of the information was the authoritative blog NASA Watch, run by NASA astrobiologist Keith Cowing. He links the event to the Trump administration’s budget request for 2026, which provided for the decommissioning of these satellites. This budget proposal caused shockwaves: it cut funding for NASA’s science division by more than half. JPL is trying to quickly find buyers among government agencies or private companies to at least partially recoup the funds.
Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society called such cuts “an event that will lead to the extinction of space science.” Cowing notes that JPL does not appear to be waiting for final budget approval and is already beginning to shut down space missions, signaling very difficult times ahead for the agency. Many experts see this as a continuation of the new US administration’s anti-science policy and denial of climate change.
The news of the satellite sale caused a wave of outrage in the scientific community, including among former NASA employees. Coving emphasizes that the situation is developing dynamically and promises to add new information as it is confirmed.
The sale of unique scientific instruments has become a striking symbol of the deep crisis in funding for fundamental research into Earth from space.
Earlier, we reported on the actual budget of NASA.
