Reading through Payload’s top 2025 headlines on NASA, it’s easy to get whiplash. Between budget cuts, staff reductions, and leadership changes, it’s been a chaotic and unpredictable year for the space agency.
Here are some of the top themes that shaped the US civil space community this year:
- Downsize: NASA found itself in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s broader efforts to cut the federal government’s workforce. From cutting entire offices—including those leading policy and DEI efforts, as well as the office of the chief scientist—to pushing thousands more employees out of the agency with early retirement or deferred resignation programs, the space agency is ending the year smaller than it started.
- Protect the house: Amid all of that, advocates across the space industry stepped up to push back against the cuts to NASA’s workforce and mission.
- At the top: Jared Isaacman, the administration’s nominee to lead NASA,had afull-circle moment in 2025. He started the year being tapped to lead the space agency, and testified before Congress on his plan to tackle missions to the Moon and Mars simultaneously, before his nomination was suddenly pulled in May.
- Don’t call it a comeback: In November, Isaacman got a second chance—and a second confirmation hearing after he was renominated. The Senate approved his nomination in December, and he’s now on the job.
- Top priorities: After Isaacman’s nomination was pulled, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stepped in as the temporary leader of NASA, and made two major announcements: Establishing a new team at the space agency to lead development of a nuclear fission reactor for delivery to the lunar surface by 2030, and informally opening up the competition for a lunar lander from SpaceX, to companies like Blue Origin.
