NASA Grappling With Planetary Science Funding Shortfall

NASA's planetary science division is facing a funding shortfall that will require what director Louise Prockter called "some hard strategic choices" about which programs to continue, according to reporting by Jeff Foust at SpaceNews.

Speaking at a town hall during the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference on March 16, Prockter said funding for fiscal year 2026 is about $200 million below what her division received in 2025. An appropriations bill passed in January provided the planetary science division with $2.54 billion in 2026 — a figure that sounds robust until you consider that the division received $2.72 billion in both fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The administration had originally proposed $1.89 billion, which Congress rejected, but the final number still leaves a gap.

"We can't continue everything from the past," Prockter said. "We are about $200 million below where we were last year, and that means that not everything can continue forward or continue forward in the same way."

Those decisions will be articulated in an operating plan NASA is developing and will send to Congress in the near term. With that plan still in development, Prockter did not specify which programs might be altered or terminated, but she flagged Venus as one area under pressure. NASA selected DAVINCI and VERITAS as Discovery-class missions in 2021; both have suffered delays. NASA is also providing an instrument for EnVision, a European Space Agency Venus mission. The 2026 bill includes $99 million to continue DAVINCI while work is "ramping up slowly" on VERITAS and discussions continue with ESA on EnVision.

"It is going to be a challenge to get all three Venus missions to continue," Prockter said. "We are doing our best by Venus, but it is a tough environment and not everything can move forward."

Extended missions are another pressure point. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been approved for another three years, but the agency has not made decisions on other extended missions, including several operating at Mars. Prockter said she anticipates they will "likely go forward" but may receive only one-year extensions because of budget uncertainty.

Further complicating matters: NASA lost contact with the MAVEN Mars orbiter in early December and has yet to restore communications. Limited telemetry suggests the spacecraft is spinning and not in its planned orbit. An anomaly review board has been convened. "We haven't officially said MAVEN is lost yet," Prockter said. "We're still looking for it."

Mars Sample Return, a top priority in the latest planetary decadal survey, faces an uncertain future after Congress declined to fund it in the 2026 appropriations bill. Prockter said the division is "standing by for future budget guidance and direction from the agency as to how we might proceed." A separate budget reconciliation bill did provide $700 million for a dedicated Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, and scientists have pushed for that mission to include a science payload — a question Prockter declined to answer. "Nothing's been decided yet."

Proposals for future missions are also being pushed back. NASA expects to release an announcement of opportunity for the next New Frontiers mission in 2027, while the smaller Discovery program will not seek proposals before 2028. In her presentation, Prockter emphasized support for missions in development, including Dragonfly to Titan and the NEO Surveyor asteroid-hunting telescope. "We can continue almost everything we have been doing," she said — a statement that sits somewhat awkwardly next to the $200 million in cuts she also announced.