Yesterday, the NASA budget request was released for Fiscal Year 2026. A lot is getting cut.

The high-level view is that NASA’s focus is putting people on Mars and back on the Moon. The science budget is being heavily cut, as the agency makes a big shift away from science towards operations. The top-level budget is cut from $24.8B to $18.8B, a 25% reduction. And the agency is planning to take on the most daring space missions in it’s history. I am interested and worried to see how NASA pursues more aggressive space exploration with a significantly reduced budget.

But selfishly, I’ve been primarily concerned with where I fall in the new budget. I am part of the Agency Technical Authorities (ATA). You can think of these as three organizations of independent authorities that make sure things are being done safely and correctly at NASA.

  1. Safety: Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA)
  2. Engineering: Office of the Chief Engineer (OCE)
  3. Health: Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer (OCHMO)

I am part of OSMA, specifically in the sub-office called the NASA Safety Center.

The overall ATA budget is being reduced from $196.1M in FY24 to $69.6M in FY26. That’s a 65% reduction. It is not yet clear how exactly that overall cut will trickle down into OSMA. For more info on the ATA budget, start at page 379 of “Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Technical Supplement”

The budget request does spell out certain areas of the Technical Authorities will be “substantially reduced”, with the overall goal being consolidation of the Tech Authorities. It looks like the primary targets for reduction are the NASA Engineering Safety Center, part of OCE, and the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) program. IV&V functions like part of OSMA, because most of its funding comes from OSMA, although it is technically not part of OSMA. But in the new budget, it looks like OSMA will be reducing the money it gives to IV&V by about 75%.

These are huge cuts that we’re staring down. I am not sure what exactly this will mean for me or the people I work with day-to-day, but I anticipate tough times ahead. I’ll be interested to see what more we learn about this budget in the coming weeks.

On a related note, it sounds like NASA’s nominee for Administrator, Jared Isaacman, will be confirmed by the Senate soon. There’s no vote on the calendar yet, but I’m hearing that it’s close. I anticipate once he does get confirmed, things will start changing around NASA pretty quickly. I personally am looking forward to it, because we’ve been in a prolonged state of anticipation, with current agency leadership not wanting to make any long-term decisions. It will be nice to have clarity on what changes are actually going to happen instead of constantly spinning on the rumor mill.

This new budget and shift in priorities are going to be tough, but NASA has some of the finest people. I know we will adjust and continue to achieve great things. At least, those of us who remain. It’s going to be sad to see so many talented people leaving.