NASA is funded. Now what?

After facing monumental challenges in 2025, NASA and the space science community have now landed in 2026 with a Senate-confirmed Administrator, a full budget, and a full calendar of events. 

This is a far cry from where the community began last year. Just one month after Inauguration Day, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed the largest single-year cuts to NASA in U.S. history, including a gargantuan 47% cut to NASA Science. 

The Planetary Society and its partners responded with a Save NASA Science campaign, mobilizing advocates on a historic scale. The advocacy effort yielded results. Both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees rejected the administration's proposed cuts over the summer. By year's end, no active science missions had been terminated.

This work culminated in votes in the House and Senate on Jan. 8 and 15, respectively, to advance H.R. 6938. This minibus of three appropriations bills included the Commerce-Justice-Science budget bill, which allocated full funding for NASA and the National Science Foundation, as well as almost every budget line item that advocates spent all last year fighting for.

Meanwhile, the fiscal year (FY) 2027 budget request looms; lawmakers are weighing a long-overdue NASA authorization bill and additional space sector legislation, and newly confirmed NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is assessing the state of the agency and working to reinvigorate an agency battered by uncertainty and workforce reductions. Here's what we're watching.

The congressional budget

After an October government shutdown and a November continuing resolution that funded the government through Jan. 30, 2026, momentum built in the Senate in December toward finalizing most of FY26 appropriations. Then came a curveball: On Dec. 17, the OMB announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Colorado lawmakers forced a hold on the pending Senate package, and Congress left for recess without resolution. Going into the new year, another shutdown felt all but inevitable.

Then, in an impressive twist of fate, upon returning to session on Jan. 5, the House stepped forward and released its own three-bill minibus with science funding that even more decisively rejects OMB's proposed cuts than the previous House version had. The House passed the bill emphatically on Jan. 8 with 397 yeas to 28 nays. The Senate followed on Jan. 15 with a bipartisan 82-15 vote, and President Trump signed the legislation into law on Jan. 23.

With the budget now law, our attention shifts to implementation. Administrator Isaacman committed during his confirmation hearings to “follow the law” and spend the funds that Congress appropriates. The enacted law includes a series of funding requirements for specific missions and programs that faced termination or major cuts. Among the projects specifically called out, indicating their importance to Congress, are DAVINCI and VERITAS in NASA’s Planetary Science Division, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Habitable Worlds Observatory in the Astrophysics Division, the Geospace Dynamics Constellation in the Heliophysics Division, and the Landsat program in the Earth Science Division. Making sure NASA takes appropriate action to advance these projects will be a priority for The Planetary Society and our partners.

While we track implementation, the FY 2027 budget request is taking shape. By now, NASA and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will have gone through passback, where the agency gets its first look at the draft request. The OMB is expected to release the full budget request sometime in February or March, though a delay is possible given how quickly the FY 2026 budget came together and the increased likelihood of a partial government shutdown for the remaining agencies that don’t yet have a budget.

After the budget request comes out, Administrator Isaacman will be invited to testify to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to justify the changes to the federal budget proposed by the administration. After this testimony, Congress will then craft its budget bills, hold markup hearings, and vote at the committee and chamber levels.

The chance of a continuing resolution being necessary before Sept. 30 is high, so expect that we will be tracking the threat of pocket rescissions and impoundment around that time. The results of the 2026 midterm elections will determine the balance of power in Washington, and depending on their outcome, Congress will have to decide to either pass full-year appropriations or kick the decision to the 120th Congress.

The Planetary Society and our partners will remain actively involved in monitoring the FY 2027 appropriations process and offering opportunities for you to get involved, like our Day of Action on April 19-20, 2026. 

Executive actions

On Dec. 18, 2025, the same day that Jared Isaacman was sworn in as NASA Administrator, President Trump signed an executive order titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” signaling a shift in administration priorities when it comes to space policy. The executive order set clear targets for Americans returning to the Moon by 2028 and setting up initial elements of a permanent lunar outpost by 2030. It also directs the deployment of a nuclear reactor on the Moon, calls for winding down the International Space Station by 2030 (though that is already national policy), and clearly prioritizes lunar exploration over a rushed Mars program favored by the administration in early 2025. 

This is not out of the ordinary. The first Trump Administration expressed its space policy priorities through executive orders, labeling them as Space Policy Directives. Now that we have the first of these from the second term, should we expect the administration to set more policy this way?

The outcomes are still uncertain, as the President’s previous vehicle for developing these Space Policy Directives, the National Space Council, was disbanded. The duties of this council, which the President had revived in 2017, now fall on the Office of Science and Technology Policy. This fulcrum shift for space policy development may indicate that space exploration does not stand alone, but in the eyes of the administration exists to bolster other technology priorities: from the Golden Dome to artificial intelligence to quantum computing.

It bears watching whether the administration uses executive action to work around Congress on issues where there is disagreement, particularly as it relates to spending. The Planetary Society will be tracking executive actions that affect the NASA Science portfolio and flagging opportunities for the space community to weigh in.

Other legislation

Meanwhile, as Executive Branch priorities play out, Congress may still employ its own mechanisms for setting the direction of space policy. Beyond appropriating funds, Congress will sometimes step in to steer some NASA activities through targeted legislation and authorization bills. Congress hasn't passed a NASA authorization since the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. In 2024, then-Chairman of the House Science Committee Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) led a bipartisan NASA Authorization Act to passage in the House, but the Senate did not take up the bill before the end of the year. In early 2025, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a new bipartisan NASA Authorization Act with significant updates to the previous year’s House bill. To date, this Senate-led bill has not seen any official action. Based on current political priorities and trends in the space sector, there is interest in Congress passing a bill that addresses some major themes:

Science. Congress protected NASA Science in FY 2026. Now the question is what will happen in FY 2027 and beyond. The National Academies’ Decadal Surveys set an ambitious strategy for space science. An authorization could hold NASA accountable to these consensus goals and reaffirm congressional endorsement of these important documents.

Mars. Though Mars Sample Return is formally canceled, those tantalizing samples of martian regolith still sit in the belly of the Perseverance rover and in caches on the surface. The FY 2026 budget set aside $110 million for Mars Future Missions to develop technologies that keep the nation engaged on Mars exploration. An authorization could give further guidance to NASA on developing a roadmap for future robotic and crewed missions, keeping the door open for those samples’ eventual analysis in terrestrial laboratories.

Lunar exploration. With Artemis II prepared to launch as early as February, expect the Artemis program to remain a centerpiece of legislation as enthusiasm for human lunar exploration stays high. In accordance with the executive order mentioned above, on Jan. 13, NASA and the Department of Energy signed an agreement committing to deploy a nuclear power system on the lunar surface. And given the robust funding for Artemis III, IV, and V that Senator Cruz secured in last year’s budget reconciliation process, Artemis is here to stay. The lingering question for the future of Artemis is the role of science: from the experiments and sample-collection campaigns the astronauts are tasked with, to how NASA’s science missions like VIPER play into strategic decisions about future landing sites.

Facilitating space commerce. In 2025, the private space sector saw major advances: SpaceX's record 165 launches, Blue Origin becoming the second company to land and recycle a rocket, and Firefly Aerospace soft-landing the Blue Ghost Lander on the Moon. The industry-friendly approaches that facilitated these achievements will be a major theme in 2026.

SpaceX Starship's success or failure will influence timelines for the Artemis III lunar landing. Blue Origin is expected to launch its Blue Moon Mk1 lunar lander later this year in the hopes of usurping SpaceX as the Human Landing System provider on the Artemis III mission.

With the planned decommissioning of the International Space Station in 2030, Congress will also look to guide NASA on how best to replace ISS capabilities with commercial infrastructure. NASA has already begun the Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Destinations (CLD) program, and 2026 could see major decisions made on which stations move forward to launch. In tandem, we should see great clarity in NASA’s vision for coordinating among private companies to enable scientific experiments and instruments on new space stations in low Earth orbit.

We’ve already seen some of these themes emerge in the introduced Space RACE Act, which could see a floor vote or be folded into an authorization bill in 2026. The recently proposed NASA Talent Exchange Program Act would further open up pathways for collaboration between NASA and the private sector.

Commercial data acquisition is another area to watch. Administrator Isaacman has expressed interest in supplementing NASA’s Earth observation capabilities by expanding data purchases from commercial satellite constellations. NASA already purchases some commercial Earth observation data through its Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program, but the “science as a service” concept would seek to expand this approach, potentially to other science divisions where possible. 

Competition with China. Given the forward stance from Congress on competition with China, we can expect enhanced framing of Artemis and science flight missions as a counterweight to Chinese space ambitions. Further success by China’s impressive Chang'e lunar program could trigger Congress to push harder on the competitive angle. Similarly, given NASA’s recent redesignation as a national security agency by executive order, expect language directing NASA to expand coordination with national security organizations.

Conclusion

With a complete budget, 2026 is off to an exciting start, but how congressional support manifests into action at NASA is yet to be seen as the political environment evolves. This year will be a test of whether the success of the Save NASA Science campaign can translate into lasting progress. A NASA authorization could lock in priorities for years to come, or stall due to other political priorities taking precedence. Executive actions are already shaping new directions for NASA. And the FY 2027 budget request will reveal whether the administration has learned from Congress’s decision to reject the cuts, or if it’ll be Groundhog Day all over again. Through it all, The Planetary Society will be watching, analyzing, and preparing to mobilize. We hope you’ll join us on the journey.