The White House has ordered NASA employees to terminate two major climate change-focused satellite missions, the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. The two observatories have been collecting data on the distribution of carbon dioxide and its impact on crop health. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 fiscal year budget threatens these missions, as they provide valuable data on human activity’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions. NASA’s data is of exceptionally high quality, and it costs only $15 million per year to maintain both observatories. Former NASA employee David Crisp, who worked on the Orbiting Carbon Observatories’ instruments, believes it makes no economic sense to terminate these missions. Lawmakers have proposed a counteroffer that would keep NASA’s budget roughly in line with this year’s. Terminating Earth-monitoring missions could be a massive self-own and potentially violate existing laws by overriding existing budgets.
The White House has ordered NASA to destroy an important satellite.
