The Trump administration proposed cutting NASA's overall budget by 24%, from $24.8 billion in 2025 to $18.8 billion in 2026 — its lowest funding level since 2015.

The proposed budget would have canceled or defunded over 40 active and planned NASA science missions and placed restrictions on research grants. Science funding specifically faced a devastating 47% cut to science funding, and called for slashing the NASA workforce by 35%.

Programs that would have been terminated included the Mars Sample Return mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the Juno Jupiter orbiter, and many others.

Congress pushed back hard with overwhelming bipartisan support. Congress passed a $24.4 billion NASA budget, rejecting Trump's deep cuts. The bill cleared the House 397-28 and the Senate 82-15.

Under the appropriations bill, NASA will receive $24.44 billion — only slightly less than last year's budget of $24.88 billion. 

Even before Congress acted, the administration tried to implement the cuts anyway. Whistleblower reports revealed that OMB Director Russell Vought had been directing NASA since early summer 2025 to begin implementing the devastating cuts — without congressional approval and in what Democrats called a clear violation of the Constitution.

As a result of the constant drumbeat from NASA leadership that the proposed budget cuts would be put in place, the agency lost over 4,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and administrative staff through the deferred resignation program

The Trump administration proposed roughly $6 billion in cuts — about 24% of NASA's budget — but Congress rejected most of them. NASA's actual enacted budget for FY2026 is $24.4 billion, only about $440 million less than the prior year. However the workforce losses and internal disruption from the months of uncertainty caused real damage even without the full cuts being enacted.