House Appropriators Approve FY2026 Budget for NASA

The House Appropriations Committee approved the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill last evening including funding for NASA. The committee disagreed with the Trump Administration’s proposal to cut NASA’s budget by 24.3 percent and instead keeps the agency at roughly the same level as FY2025 — $24.8 billion. The House committee has a stronger emphasis on human exploration than its Senate counterpart, but the agency fares much better on both sides of Capitol Hill than it did in the president’s request.

No major changes to the subcommittee version of the bill were adopted during full committee markup although the manager’s amendment included language supporting several NASA programs, especially science.

As reported from the CJS subcommittee in July, the bill gives NASA $24.8 billion for FY2026, the same as its current level and slightly less than the Senate appropriations committee. Both the House and Senate reject President Trump’s proposal to cut NASA by $6 billion, from $24.8 billion in FY2026 to $18.8 billion in FY2026.

Within the total, however, the two sides of Capitol Hill had some notable differences. The House committee is providing more than the Senate — and more than the president’s request — for human space exploration, the only part of NASA’s budget that wasn’t targeted for steep reductions in the request. The House committee consequently provides less than the Senate for NASA’s other accounts.

Although science received less than in the Senate version, the House committee provided a $300 million lifeline for the Mars Sample Return program. The Trump Administration’s proposal is to terminate it. The Senate bill is silent.

Manager’s Amendment #1 offered by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), chair of the CJS subcommittee, contains non-controversial provisions that both sides of the aisle agreed upon in advance.

For science, amendment language supports —

• continued operation of the New Horizons mission that flew past Pluto and is now in the Kuiper Belt;
• continued operation of the Juno mission orbiting Jupiter;
• NASA’s request to establish a regular cadence of science driven, lower-cost and hosted instrument opportunities to Mars;
• continued funding for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory; and
• encourages NASA to maintain active involvement in the Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite (ULTRASAT) project led by Israel in collaboration with Germany.

For aeronautics, the amendment —

• requires that no Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities (AETC) managed large wind tunnels be placed in stand-by mode until 10 days after NASA briefs the committee on a plan for utilization of the wind tunnels incorporating the needs of NASA, other government agencies, and the private sector, and NASA must brief the committee 30 days before placing any wind tunnel into stand-by mode; and
• includes up to $31.4 million for the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology program, of which no less than $600,000 is for the Vertical Lift Research Centers of Excellence.

The amendment also —

• encourages NASA to evaluate its workforce needs, including any critical vacancies that may have arisen, and brief the committee quarterly on any workforce gaps;
• adds $3 million for an additional Deep Space Food Challenge in FY2026 to follow the three successful challenges already conducted; and
• adds up to $10 million in the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) for NASA to fund cross-mission directorate investments in transformational light-weight technologies and vehicles to support NASA missions in various Earth orbits and beyond.

The manager’s amendment was adopted by voice vote.

During the committee’s markup, another attempt was made to eliminate the requirement in the reconciliation act, H.R. 1, to transfer “a space vehicle” — thought to be the Space Shuttle Discovery — to Johnson Space Center in Texas. Discovery is currently at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA. Earlier this week, four Virginia Democrats tried to offer an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to repeal that language, but the House Rules Committee didn’t allow it to be debated by the House.

At the House Appropriations CJS markup, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) offered amendment #3 to strike the pertinent paragraphs and subparagraphs of 51 U.S.C. 20306 that were added by H.R. 1 as well as eliminate the $85 million allocated for the move. His amendment also would have added funds for the Inspectors General (IGs) at the Department of Justice, NASA, and NSF. It was rejected 27-33.

Most of the discussion focused on the proposed additional funds for the IGs. CJS subcommittee chairman Rogers opposed the IG funding because no offsets were proposed. As for the space shuttle, he said only that “the ink is barely dry” on that legislation and already efforts are being made to change it and “I can’t support that effort.”

There is broad bipartisan support for NASA and several members made positive comments during their opening remarks, but there is considerable disagreement about a wide variety of issues in the Department of Commerce and Department of Justice portions of the bill. After many hours of debate, the bill passed on a party-line vote of 34-28.

This was the last of the 12 appropriations FY2026 bills to clear the committee.