NASA is quietly ending financial support for independent planetary science advisory groups, according to a letter Posted on the agency’s website on January 16.
Affected groups have historically offered feedback to the space agency on science efforts. from to From exploring Mars and ocean worlds to storing extraterrestrial samples, and much more.
Funding to support these “analysis and evaluation groups” will end “by the end of April 2026,” according to the letter signed by Lewis Proctor, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.
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The letter cited “several recent changes in the NASA landscape”, including executive orders from US President Donald Trump and the “highly limited” budget, as reasons for no longer supporting the groups.
Speaking at a Tuesday meeting of the Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences Committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Proctor emphasized that the decision would not necessarily end the groups, but they would result in a loss of funding. SpaceNews reported. “We are not able to support them for a number of reasons,” he said.
Editor’s note (1/21/26): This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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