The White House released its FY2027 NASA budget proposal on 3 April, one day after four astronauts left Earth orbit 1. The request: $18.8 billion, a 23% cut from the $24.4 billion Congress enacted for FY2026, identical in top-line to the FY2026 proposal that Congress rejected.
Artemis receives $8.5 billion, a 10% increase, with $731 million more than the prior year and a new $175 million investment for robotic missions near the Moon's South Pole. The cost falls on science: the Science Mission Directorate loses $3.4 billion , a 47% cut that eliminates 40+ missions 2. STEM education is zeroed out entirely. The ISS budget drops $1.1 billion.
Administrator Jared Isaacman stated NASA must "spend smarter, not spend more" 3. Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member of the House Science Committee, called the proposal a document that "should be ignored" 4. Over 100 Congressional members had already requested $9 billion for NASA science in a 13 March letter.
Congress mandated $1.025 billion annually for SLS through FY2029 via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act , which means Artemis continues regardless of what the White House proposes. Isaacman had already cancelled SLS Block 1B and Block 2 upgrades in February ; the budget proposes redirecting $2.6 billion from the cancelled Gateway programme toward a lunar base camp. Whether Congress writes a different number, as it did last year, is the open political question.
