ESA considering freezing or axing missions amid NASA budget cuts
The European Space Agency (ESA) isn't ruling out programme cuts or freezes if proposed budget cuts to the American space agency NASA are passed by the US Congress later this year.
NASA's 2026 technical budget request, which was released last week, details possible cuts to 19 European space research programmes and could impact key technologies that ESA supplies to American Moon missions.
The bill still needs Congress' approval, likely to come this autumn.
Josef Aschbacher, ESA's director general, told journalists on Thursday that the council is 'doing its homework' to analyse what the impacts of possible NASA budget cuts could be and how investments made by its member states could be 'used in the most efficient way,' to respond.
Aschbacher assured that no cuts or cancellations were coming until the US "finalised" its position, but that no matter the decision made by Congress, ESA would be "ready" and "well-prepared" to react.
Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, said the agency had determined 19 research projects could be impacted by the proposed NASA budget cuts.
Mundell said ESA and its international partners could mitigate the damage to all but three of them: the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a space probe that measures gravitational waves, Envision, ESA's first mission to Venus to measure its different atmospheres, and NewAthena, the world's largest X-Ray observatory.
LISA and Envision have already been approved by the ESA council for funding, and NewAthena will come before the council but is expected to pass in 2027.
ESA also supplies NASA with certain key parts for the NASA-led Artemis missions that would see humans return to the surface of the Moon for the first time since the 1960s.
The ESA builds European Space Modules (ESMs) that provide electricity and oxygen to Orion, the spacecraft picked by NASA for the Artemis missions to the surface of the Moon.
The ESA is also in charge of the Argonaut, Europe's lunar lander programme that would ultimately support these missions.
It is also contributing three key elements for Gateway, the first international space station to be built around the Moon.
The proposed NASA budget said that it will sustain funding for the Artemis II mission, scheduled for early 2026, and the Artemis III mission in 2027, but future missions would cancel the Gateway and retire Orion in the name of finding a more 'sustainable and cost-effective' lunar exploration strategy.
Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA's director of human and robotic exploration, said the agency continues to fulfill its Gateway and ESM contracts with NASA.
Even if cuts are approved, Argonaut and these European capabilities would still be used to support ESA missions, he added.
Neuenschwander said ESA was now exploring with industry how some replacement technologies could be built in the EU.
For example, the NASA cuts target the Rosalind Franklin ExoMars Rover mission, an ESA programme that drills down to the surface of the Red Planet to dig up organic material for further scientific study.
NASA supplies three parts of the rover's technology, including the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA), an astrobiology instrument that does the sample extraction, and an americium radioisotope heater unit (RHU) to power the vehicle.
Both technologies are not currently available to be produced in Europe, Neuenschwander said, but that engagement is starting to build them. The RHU in particular can also be used for future ESA lunar surface exploration missions, he added.
Neuenschwander said ESA could rely on other partners, like the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), in the short term to supply technologies like the MOMA or RHU, but ultimately the goal is to build the necessary technology in Europe.
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