Trump’s budget request for NASA proposes eliminating the Gateway outpost around the Moon. Photo: NASA

President Trump’s budget proposal for NASA looks to cut funding for the agency by 24%, while increasing funding for human space exploration and slashing space science funding. 

The Trump-Vance Administration released toplines of the President’s budget for fiscal year 2026 on May 2. The budget request for NASA is $18.8 billion — that is $6 billion less than 2025 enacted budget, a 24% cut. 

The proposed budget would increase funding for human space exploration by $647 million, and allocate $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Mars-focused programs.

“By allocating over $7 billion for lunar exploration and introducing $1 billion in new investments for Human Space Exploration, the Budget ensures that America’s human space exploration efforts remain unparalleled, innovative, and efficient,” the budget request says. 

A number of programs are identified to be cut or dramatically reduced. The budget proposes canceling the Mars Sample Return mission and phasing out the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule after three flights, calling it “grossly expensive and delayed.” The budget would replace SLS and Orion flights to the Moon with commercial systems. 

The budget proposes reducing crew size and research onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and to “significantly reduce” crew and cargo flights to the station. It proposes terminating the Gateway, which is in development as a long-term orbit outpost of the Moon. It also calls for reducing Space Technology budget by approximately half. 

The budget proposes $1.16 billion in cuts from Earth sciences, to “eliminate funding for low-priority climate monitoring satellites and restructure the gold-plated, two-billion-dollar Landsat Next mission while NASA studies more affordable ways to maintain the continuity of Landsat imagery.” 

Trump’s budget proposal now goes to Congress, while the House and Senate create their own budget resolutions.

The budget proposal has already recieved pushback from members of Congress and space industry groups. Space advocacy organization The Planetary Society called the budget “reckless,” and said cutting NASA’s budget this much “will cause chaos, waste the taxpayers’ investment, and undermine American leadership in space.”

The Planetary Society has issued a letter to Congress calling for the restoration of NASA science funding in 2026, with industry signatories like the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Representative Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said in a statement that Trump’s budget proposal “spells disaster for our nation’s science enterprise.”

“For decades, we have worked on a bipartisan basis to strengthen our competitiveness and make the research ecosystem here in the United States the envy of the world. We succeeded in that. Now Donald Trump is rapidly destroying that foundation in a matter of months. In the meantime, China is funneling resources at a pace never seen before. Trump is following a how-to guidebook on how to lose to China. With this unserious budget, that’s exactly what he’ll get and exactly what he’ll be known for. It would take decades to recover from the damage he has already done,” Lofgren said in a statement about cuts to sciences.

The European Space Agency, which collaborates with NASA, is assessing the impact of potential reductions with its Member States before the ESA June Council, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said in a Monday statement.

“ESA and NASA have a long history of successful partnership, particularly in exploration – a highly visible example of international cooperation – where we have many joint activities forging decades of strong bonds between American and European colleagues. Space exploration is an endeavor in which the collective can reach much farther than the individual. Thus, ESA has strong partnerships with space agencies from around the globe and is committed to not only being a reliable partner, but a strong and desirable partner,” Aschbacher  said in the statement.