NASA is starting off the year hot, with a positive budget proposal—as well as a permanent administrator at the helm, after nearly a year of interim leadership.
Budget bonanza: On Monday, the House Appropriations Committee released a “minibus” bill that includes $24.4B for the space agency in fiscal 2026. While it’s a slight decrease from the $24.9B NASA got the two prior fiscal years, the bill contains a substantial increase over the $18.8B proposed by the Trump administration.
Within the allocation, the bill would appropriate $7.3B to NASA’s science missions—a clear rebuke of the White House’s proposal to gut the space agency’s science portfolio. That’s nearly double the $3.9B request from the Trump administration, and nearly flat with the fiscal 2025 enacted budget.
What’s next: It’s important to note that these numbers are not law…at least not yet. Both chambers of Congress still need to pass the bill before the continuing resolution runs out on Jan. 30, to avoid another government shutdown.
New hire: Meanwhile, Jared Isaacman is hitting the ground running after being sworn in as NASA chief on Dec. 18.
- The billionaire-turned-SpaceX astronaut announced a plan on Monday to modernize the space agency’s infrastructure, starting with the demolition of two test structures at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL beginning on Saturday. The removal of aging infrastructure is intended to make way for new tech, Isaacman said in a statement.
- Isaacman has also found himself playing referee between states over who gets to keep Space Shuttle Discovery. If budget restrictions and worries about damage to the vehicle do not allow the spacecraft to relocate from the Smithsonian outside DC to Houston, Isaacman offered an enticing consolation prize to Texas—a capsule that will make a trip around the Moon on a future Artemis mission, as soon as with the Artemis II crewed mission that lifts off this year.
Of course, Isaacman has a lot more than demolition and parochial battles on his plate. The NASA chief’s top priorities will be overseeing the US return to the Moon, the agency’s relationship with the commercial sector, and the long-term push to send humans to Mars.
