NASA's FY 2025 Budget

President Biden's Budget Request for NASA for fiscal year 2025 was $25.4 billion, which would have been a 2% increase over 2024, had it been enacted. However, due to political gridlock and the Republican victories in the Fall elections, Congress never passed appropriations bills for NASA and other agencies. Instead, Congress passed a full-year continuing resolution, which functionally held funding flat for most government agencies compared to 2024.

The full-year funding extension was passed on March 15th, 2025, more than halfway through fiscal year 2025. We do not yet know how the CR will impact NASA programs and divisions.

The President's FY 2025 Budget Request for NASA

Highlights from the President's Budget Request included:
 

• NASA's Planetary Science Division flat at $2.7 billion — a $500 million cut from 2023
  Congress cut the division's budget to $2.7 billion in FY2024 in response to MSR's troubles. The Biden Administration would have extended that cut into 2025.
• Mars Sample Return (MSR) remained in programmatic limbo
  Pending a decision on a reimagined project, MSR funding was proposed at $200 million to maintain NASA's essential workforce.
• The VERITAS mission to Venus was restored with a 2031 launch date
  VERITAS had been indefinitely delayed in 2023. It is now replanned to launch in 2031.
• DAVINCI was delayed to the same 2031 launch window
• The Geospace Dynamics Constellation was proposed to be canceled
  This high-priority Heliophysics flagship was proposed to be canceled due to budget constraints.
• Artemis funding was flat
  At 7.6 billion, the request was similar to FY2024's congressional appropriation.

Explore this data. View historical NASA budget data, including breakdowns by fiscal year, and comparisons to total U.S. spending and GDP, on this Google Spreadsheet.

President's Budget Request Source Documents

• FY 2025 Agency Fact Sheet
• FY 2025 Congressional Justification
• FY 2025 Summary Budget Brief

Congressional Activity

On June 26th, 2024, the House of Representatives' Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee (CJS) of Appropriations released its draft NASA budget for FY 2025. The full appropriations committee subsequently approved it on July 9th.

The House provided a 1% increase to NASA’s budget relative to 2024, which was less than the 2% proposed by the White House. Funding for the Science Directorate remained flat, with the increases primarily benefiting NASA’s Space Operations and Space Technology directorates.

Within the limited Science budget, the House did provide a $200 million increase to the Planetary Science Division, primarily at the expense of Earth Science. The House was set to appropriate $650 million for the troubled Mars Sample Return program, which was undergoing significant re-evaluation, including the consideration of commercial partnerships. NASA had requested $200 million for 2025. The difference—$450 million—was partially offset by the PSD top-line increase. However, neither the legislative text nor the associated committee report addressed how the Planetary Science Division would absorb the $250 million shortfall. Given committee direction supporting NEO Surveyor and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, there were only a handful of programs that could have been cut (and cut severely) to accommodate this additional spending: Dragonfly to Titan, the two Venus Discovery missions in early development, fundamental scientific research, and Radioisotope Power Systems would all have been targets had this bill passed as-is.

The Senate's CJS committee released its draft NASA budget on July 25th, 2025, though the full Senate never voted on the measure. The Senate's bill tracked more closely to the President's budget request, and maintained a low funding profile for Mars Sample Return. 

The U.S. national elections sidelined further progress on appropriations. While Congress nearly approved an omnibus funding measure in December, the votes did not materialize, and the U.S. government was provided a further continuing resolution into the Spring.

Congress ultimately opted to pass a full-year continuing resolution in March of 2025, nearly 6 months into the fiscal year. While the final bill had a number of directives to U.S. agencies, NASA received only a single mention: to provide $3.092 billion for the Safety, Security, and Mission Services, approximately $50 million above the requested amount.

Further details of NASA's implemented budget in FY 2025 await release by the White House.

House CJS Source Documents

• FY 2025 HAC-CJS Appropriations (NASA Section)
• FY 2025 HAC-CJS Committee Report (NASA Section)

Senate CJS Source Documents

• FY 2025 SAC-CJS Appropriations (NASA Section)
• FY 2025 SAC-CJS Committee Report (NASA Section)

Full-year Continuing Resolution

• Public Law 119-4

Additional Resources and Analysis