House Advances Science Funding and NASA Reauthorization Bills

This has been a busy week for the House of Representatives as they map out their fiscal year (FY) 2025 appropriations bills for NASA, NSF, and the Department of Energy (DoE) while also releasing a NASA reauthorization bill. These two bills include proposed cuts to science programs that could lead to another turbulent year for our community, some support for the Decadal priority missions, and potential changes to how NASA and the Decadal Surveys estimate costs for future missions. 

FY25 Funding

The House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) released their initial funding bill on 26 June. The bill, which could determine the funding levels for NASA and NSF for FY25, was moved forward to be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee, which in term voted on 9 July to move the bill to a floor vote by the full House. The floor vote has not yet been scheduled. The bill would allocate just over $25 billion to NASA in FY25, including $7.3 billion for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD). The SMD funding level would be equal to FY24 (not including inflation) and is $231.5 million below the requested level. In an accompanying report, the Committee laid out more specific funding guidelines for major missions.  

For Planetary Science, the report recommends that the Near-Earth Object Surveyor be funded at between $235.6 million and $296.7 million, while the Mars Sample Return would be funded at $650 million ($400 million more than the request). The report lays out concerns over NASA’s plans to re-evaluate Mars Sample Return over the rising costs and delays, specifically regarding the serious job losses that have occurred over the past year. Earlier this year, NASA reduced their requested funding for the mission and requested proposals from NASA centers and industry partners for a new mission architecture, which would delay the mission to no later than 2040. NASA recently announced an initial set of technology development grants to several companies and NASA centers to further develop this new architecture. The report supports NASA’s partnership with industry to explore new options for the mission but directs NASA to ensure that the FY26 budget request includes a funding profile that would allow for a launch by 2031.

Within the Astrophysics Division, the Chandra X-ray Observatory gets a nod of support, with the report stating that “the Committee supports funding for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which continues to deliver discoveries addressing a wide range of questions across astrophysics.” However, the report does not allocate specific funding towards Chandra. This would allow NASA to continue with its plan to reduce the allocated funding towards the mission, although the specifics of how grants and operations for the observatory would be affected are not yet known. NASA has organized an operations paradigm change review to examine potential pathways for Chandra and is expected to announce the results of that review during the July Astrophysics Advisory Committee meeting. The Hubble Space Telescope, which is also undergoing that review process in the face of budget cuts, is not mentioned in the report.

Heliophysics is set to receive a cut in FY25. The report makes no mention of the Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission, the Decadal Survey–recommended mission that was slated for cancellation in the FY25 NASA budget request. 

The bill would increase NSF funding by nearly $200 million from FY24, including an increase of $370 million to Research and Related Activities. Of the allocated funding, $30 million would be set aside for the design and development of the Astro2020 priorities, such as the US Extremely Large Telescope (US-ELT) program and the Next Generation Very Large Array. Recently, the National Science Board, which advises the NSF, recommended a cost cap of $1.6 billion for the US-ELT program and recommended that the NSF move forward with only one of the two proposed observatories. The NSF in turn announced the formation of an independent committee to review the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope and is set to announce which (if any) will continue through the final design review phase this Fall. The Committee report, however, encourages the NSF to support a two-observatory US-ELT program and directs the NSF to provide regular briefings on the status of the project. The report also directs the NSF to provide adequate support for current astronomy facilities as it ramps up investments in new facilities. The report recommends $235 million for the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC), $1 million above FY24, and re-emphasizes its direction to NSF for regular updates on the US-ELT program, including a timeline for when the projects would advance through the final design review phase and into the MREFC account.  

Alongside the CJS bill, the House Appropriations Committee also passed the Energy and Water Development bill, which sets the funding levels for the DoE. In the accompanying report, the Committee continues to support the Cosmic Microwave Background Stage 4 experiment, although it provides no increase in funding while the project goes through redesigns. The project, which is being built in collaboration with the DoE, the NSF, and several institutions, was recently forced to reconsider plans for an Antarctic component while the NSF implements their Antarctic Infrastructure Recapitalization plan. This plan would see many upgrades to the facilities in the region but would also delay the start of any major projects for the next 10 years.  

Even if these bills pass the House, they are unlikely to pass through the Senate and become law as they contain several “poison pill” riders that would severely limit funding for DEI programs, climate change research, research on gender and sexuality, and other hot-button issues. The Senate will draft its own version of the bills that reflect their priorities sometime in the next few months. The two chambers will then have until the end of October to reconcile the differences in the bills, which will be difficult to accomplish given the limited amount of time left in the legislative calendar and the increased political tensions as we approach the November elections. Congress may instead pass a continuing resolution as they did last year, which would fund federal agencies at FY24 levels. If neither an appropriations bill nor a continuing resolution passes, then the government would enter a shutdown.  

NASA Reauthorization

Also this week in the House, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee hosted their markup of the NASA Reauthorization Act on 10 July.  Every federal agency needs to periodically undergo a reauthorization process, which details the general activities that the agency can undertake. The agency would still need to go through the appropriations process to receive funding for those activities, but funding cannot be appropriated for unauthorized activities. In the SMD section of the bill, the main changes over previous authorizations are a requirement for NASA to report on their process to estimate mission costs and a requirement for future Decadal Surveys to include different prioritization plans that reflect different NASA funding scenarios. The bill calls for a balance in division portfolios and for a regular cadence on small and mid-scale missions.

At the flagship level, the bill requires NASA to submit a report to Congress on the status of the Mars Sample Return, including details on the new architecture, timeline, and costs. It does not, however, specify a timeline or cost cap for the mission. The bill supports the creation of the Great Observatories Mission and Technology Maturation project, which will develop the technology needed for the Habitable Worlds Observatory and requires NASA to provide annual reports on the progress of the project. The continued development of the Geospace Dynamics Constellation mission is supported by the bill, which requires NASA to submit a plan to launch the mission by the end of the decade.

Regarding Hubble, the bill requires NASA to submit a report to Congress on any studies conducted in the last five years on the possibility of a private servicing mission, such as the recent proposal by the billionaire Jared Isaacman that was turned down by NASA over safety concerns. Chandra receives some support in this bill, which prevents NASA from reducing science operations until the completion of the next senior review for the mission. That senior review is set to occur in 2025; the last senior review for Chandra and Hubble was in 2022.