The U.S. House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday expressed support for several NASA missions that currently sit on the chopping block as a result of the administration’s 2026 budget proposal. While the committee did not specifically allocate more money to these missions, the support breathes new life into planetary science efforts that have been years in the making.
The House committee met to discuss the commerce, justice, and science budget bill, which allocates funding to federal agencies like NASA. The bill secures more than $24.8 billion for NASA, about the same amount the agency received in 2024 and 2025—much higher than the administration’s previously proposed $18.8 billion for 2026.
The committee approved the bill in a 34-28 vote; it will now advance to the full House for a vote. Congress’s deadline to finalize individual appropriations bills—October 1—is fast approaching.
Keeping NASA’s science missions alive
During the meeting, the committee adopted amendments to a report accompanying the bill, adding the New Horizons mission exploring the Kuiper Belt, NASA’s Juno mission probing Jupiter and its moons, and a series of lower-cost robotic missions to Mars as part of the bill. Although the report didn’t specify an amount of funds that should go toward these missions, it suggests they have broad support from the committee.
“The Committee supports NASA’s request to establish a regular cadence of science-driven, lower-cost mission and hosted instrument opportunities to Mars,” the report reads. The committee also recommended that NASA deliver these new missions and instruments alongside its commercial partners.
The report also included a new section regarding the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, announcing new funding for the telescope. Chandra, which launched in 1999 as the world’s most powerful x-ray telescope, has been delivering high-resolution data on black holes, supernovae, and galaxy clusters ever since. The administration’s budget request, however, called for its termination.
The White House’s proposed budget for 2026, released in May, would reduce NASA’s funding by $6 billion compared to 2025. Under that proposal, NASA’s planetary science budget would drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion.
That would kill dozens of active and planned missions, including New Horizons. The spacecraft, which launched on January 19, 2006, traveled 9 billion miles in nine and a half years , becoming the first mission to reach Pluto. Hailed as one of the most successful planetary missions, it revealed that the icy planetessimal and its moons are far more complex than scientists had initially assumed.