The White House. Photo: US government

The White House released its fiscal 2027 budget proposal on Friday, which called for a “historic increase” in defense spending and fully funding the Golden Dome missile defense initiative, while targeting a 23% budget cut for NASA.

President Trump’s budget request calls for a 23% decrease in funding for NASA compared to the 2026 enacted funding. Overall, the budget requests $18.8 billion in funding for NASA. This would require $3.4 billion in cuts across Earth, Planetary, Astrophysics, and Heliophysics science missions. 

This is similar to the request the White House made for NASA for 2026. Congress undid most of Trump’s proposed cuts for the 2026 budget, which ended up a slight decrease from 2025 funding levels. 

The NASA budget calls for a $731 million increase for the Artemis program, and $175 million investment for robotic missions to start a permanent outpost near the south pole of the Moon.

For the Department of Defense, the 2027 budget proposes $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending and $350 billion in mandatory spending, bringing total resources for defense to $1.5 trillion. This would be a 44% increase for the DoD. 

Space was particularly called out as an investment area. 

“The Budget prioritizes funding to secure and defend America’s vital national and economic security interests in, from, and to space. Space investments encompass efforts in support of the Golden Dome for America, America’s launch infrastructure, and classified programs,” the budget document says.   

The budget says it will fully fund the Golden Dome, including “space-based missile defense sensors and interceptors, kinetic and non-kinetic missile defeat and defense capabilities, and enabling technologies for a layered, next-generation homeland missile defense system.” 

In other federal budget priorities that are relevant to the space industry, it requests a $481 million increase to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) budget, partially to support commercial space operations, along with other priorities.