A new hope

Space Advocacy Update

NASA’s budget has been saved. This week, the United States Senate voted to approve a budget bill for the 2026 fiscal year that unambiguously rejects the historic cuts to NASA proposed by the White House.

Congress provided $24.4 billion for NASA and $7.25 billion for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in FY 2026, only slightly below 2025 funding levels and vastly better than the proposed 24% cut to NASA and 47% cut to NASA science.

This is a historic victory, made possible by the grassroots advocacy led by The Planetary Society and carried out by people like you. Learn more about what this budget means for NASA and how advocates made it happen.

Pictured: Advocates at the Save NASA Science Day of Action in October 2025. Image credit: The Planetary Society.

Fact Worth Sharing

The budget that passed this week preserves funding for all major NASA science divisions and more than a dozen missions that were otherwise slated for premature termination, including VERITAS, DAVINCI, NEO Surveyor, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, and many more.

Mission Briefings

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is proving good at finding fast-spinning asteroids. The results come from the observatory’s “First Look” campaign, which collected about 340,000 observations between April 21, 2025, and May 5, 2025. Researchers were able to track the spin rates of several dozen asteroids, including the fastest-spinning sub-kilometer asteroids ever found. Pictured: The lines in this image from Rubin show asteroids that moved between two exposures. Image credit: Rubin SkyViewer.

A private foundation is planning to fund a new space telescope. Schmidt Sciences — an organization funded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt — recently announced plans to fund a 3-meter space telescope as well as three ground-based space science facilities. They aim to have all four operational by 2029, with open data access available to the scientific community.

NASA and the Department of Energy are planning to develop a lunar surface reactor. The two government bodies have signed an agreement to develop a nuclear fission power system on the surface of the Moon by 2030. The aim of the reactor would be to supply continuous, reliable power for sustained human exploration, independent of sunlight.

NASA’s PANDORA mission has launched. PANDORA, led by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, is designed to study exoplanets and their stars. The spacecraft will observe exoplanets discovered by other missions to gain information about the planets’ atmospheres and how their stars may produce or affect the signals we detect from them.

From The Planetary Society

A new mission aims to understand the Sun’s influence on interstellar space. NASA’s IMAP mission (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) launched in September 2025 to map the boundaries of the heliosphere where the solar wind collides with material from interstellar space. Learn more in this week’s Planetary Radio, featuring an interview with two of the researchers behind the mission. Pictured: The Sun seen by the NASA/ESA Solar Orbiter mission. Image credit: ESA/NASA et al. 

Do you have a groundbreaking project that could advance space science and exploration? We want to hear from you. Preproposals for The Planetary Society’s STEP (Science and Technology Empowered by the Public) Grant program are due on Jan. 22. Learn more about the program and the kinds of innovative ideas we’re looking for.

What's Up

In the early evening, look for yellowish Saturn in the west and Jupiter in the east. Jupiter crosses the sky over the course of the night, setting in the west around sunrise. Learn more about what to look for in January’s night skies.

Help save space missions. Join today!

There is still much work to be done to support NASA, the missions it enables, and the people who make it all happen. If you are not already a member, join The Planetary Society today to help us continue the fight for NASA Science.

When you become a member of The Planetary Society, you join the world’s largest and most influential space advocacy nonprofit. Will you join us and enable the future of space exploration?

Wow of the Week

What’s for dinner? We’re all familiar with the never-ending task of coming up with appealing, nutritious, affordable meals. But imagine having to do this on Mars, with only the food you brought with you from Earth or grew on site. This is what NASA’s new Deep Space Food Challenge aims to tackle. “Mars to Table” is a global competition inviting chefs, innovators, culinary experts, higher-education students, and citizen scientists to design a complete, Earth-independent food system for long-duration space missions. Pictured: A taco floating in the International Space Station. Image credit: NASA.

Send us your artwork!

We love to feature space artwork in the Downlink. If you create any kind of space-related art, we invite you to send it to us by replying to any Downlink email or writing to [email protected]. Please let us know in your email if you’re a Planetary Society member!