Lofgren Raises Alarm About Laboratory and Other Closings at NASA Goddard

The top Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee is raising the alarm about actions being taken at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center during the government shutdown to close laboratories and other facilities critical to NASA missions. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) wrote a letter to the acting head of NASA today demanding that the closures and relocations cease immediately, noting Goddard staff were informed only last week that some facilities must be emptied by this Wednesday, November 12.

In her letter to Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, Lofgren especially focused on the impact of these actions on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope that is nearing completion. One of the facilities Goddard management told staff must be emptied by Wednesday is a propulsion laboratory “that is mission critical” for completing Roman. The $4.3 billion telescope (including launch and 5 years of operations) is expected to launch no later than May 2027 and perhaps as early as fall 2026.

“The agency’s hastily planned moves and closures – some of which I understand are already well underway – risk causing significant delays for multi-billion-dollar missions under development such as Roman and could heighten the risk of mission failure altogether. I intend to request an investigation by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) into all of the agency’s actions to carry out the so-called “transformation” of Goddard. But I am concerned in the meantime that the agency is taking actions that could irreversibly degrade critical functions supporting NASA’s flight missions, damage or dispose of specialized equipment, and permanently kneecap the agency.”

Lofgren noted NASA’s “Master Plan for Goddard 2017-2037” envisions changes over those 20 years resulting in reducing Goddard’s footprint by 25 percent and making other improvements, but the current actions are “far from what is happening at Goddard today.”

“I can assure you, as the Ranking Member of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, that NASA never disclosed the initiation of a radically different implementation from what was envisioned by the Master Plan to me or my staff before setting it in motion, nor did the agency provide us any rationale for the drastic change of timeline. Nevertheless, over the past month, it appears that Goddard has in fact begun to pack up laboratories, empty out a number of buildings on its Greenbelt campus, and relocate the facilities, in some cases without having even identified the destination of the relocation.”

She called on NASA to respond to her letter within 24 hours confirming the actions have been put on hold indefinitely, and within 7 days to provide a “full accounting of the damage inflicted on Goddard thus far.”

“I am hereby demanding that NASA immediately halt all building, laboratory, facility, and technical capability closure and relocation activities and immediately cease the relocation, disposal, excessing, or repurposing of any specialized equipment or mission-related hardware and systems at Goddard. In addition, within 7 days, I demand a full accounting of the damage inflicted on Goddard thus far. NASA must stop what it is doing at Goddard and submit to oversight by Congress and the OIG before it inflicts permanent damage on agency scientific capabilities with severe and lasting consequences.”

NASA did not immediately reply to a request for comment from SpacePolicyOnline.com. (NASA replied on November 13. See below.)

In a November 3 statement, the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA), part of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) labor union, said NASA Goddard is closing 13 campus buildings including about 100 laboratories “with extreme haste and with no transparent strategy or benefit to NASA or the Nation.” They complained of a “complete breakdown” in communication with the agency and Center leadership with decisions communicated “almost always verbally, and not directly by the decision makers.”

Cynthia Simmons is the Acting Director of Goddard, taking on that position after the departure of Makenzie Lystrup in August. Simmons previously was Deputy Center Director and Director of the Flight Projects Directorate.

Located in Greenbelt, MD, Goddard has been NASA’s premier science Center for decades managing iconic projects like the James Webb Space Telescope and hundreds of other earth-orbiting and deep space missions. It also manages and operates NASA’s Near Earth Network communications system. The Roman Space Telescope, being built in cooperation with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) operated for NASA by the California Institute of Technology, is the Center’s current flagship mission in development. It also manages Dragonfly, the nuclear-powered quad-copter being developed by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab to fly over the dunes of Saturn’s moon Titan.

In addition to the campus in Greenbelt, MD, Goddard oversees the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, VA, where suborbital and orbital launches take place for government and commercial customers.

Update: On November 13, NASA provided this response to our request for comment saying it is attributable to Acting Goddard Center Director Cynthia Simmons.