Policy Update (26 March 2026)

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science has been reorganized, as reported by Lindsay McKenzie at the American Institute of Physics (AIP). As part of this reorganization, the Office of High Energy Physics, which is home to the Cosmic Frontiers program, has been recombined with the Office of Nuclear Physics. As of the time of writing, it is unclear how this reorganization will impact the astronomical science activities within DOE, if at all.

SpaceX submitted a consolidated response to petitions from multiple organizations — including the AAS, Amazon Leo, and Viasat — to deny the SpaceX Federal Communications Commission (FCC) application to operate a new constellation of one million data centers. On 23 March, AAS submitted a reply comment to SpaceX’s consolidated response. On 24 March, Reflect Orbital also submitted a consolidated response to multiple petitions to deny their FCC application, including the AAS's petition to deny.

On 13 March, the AAS submitted a response to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Dear Colleague letter titled NSF Intent to Restructure Critical Weather Infrastructure. In the letter, AAS underscores the importance of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for space weather modeling and forecasting, and that "any divestment or fragmentation of NCAR’s core capabilities threatens the integrity of our nation’s atmospheric and space weather research, modeling, and forecasting capabilities, and therefore should not be pursued." As reported by AIP FYI, the University Consortium for Atmospheric Research, the operator of NCAR, has filed a lawsuit arguing that the Administration violated long-established procedures in their plans to transfer NCAR’s supercomputing center to a third party.

Thank you to the 300 advocates who took part in our action alerts urging your House members to sign onto Dear Colleague letters in support of robust funding for NASA Science, NSF, and the DOE Office of Science. As first reported by The Planetary Society, our combined efforts resulted in 103 House members calling for $9 billion for NASA Science in FY2027. This is 20 more signatories than we had last year. At least 101 members also signed the letter in support of the DOE Office of Science, and we will report on the number of House members in support of NSF when that information becomes available.

For more science and space policy news, check out:

• What’s Ahead: The Week of March 23rd, 2026 (AIP FYI)
• What’s Happening in Space Policy March 22–28, 2026 (SpacePolicyOnline)

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to [email protected]. For a chronological list of recent AAS actions and public policy updates, check out our Public Policy Updates page.