WASHINGTON — NASA has deferred any plans to reduce operations of two major space telescopes as a cost-cutting move until after the agency receives its final appropriations for fiscal year 2025.
At an online town hall session Oct. 23, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said the agency was holding off on any changes in the operations of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope while awaiting Congress to finalize appropriations for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1.
“That means we’re taking no further steps forward with Chandra or Hubble at this time,” he said.
NASA, in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal released in March, proposed a 40% cut in Chandra’s operating budget to $41.1 million, while Hubble’s budget would be cut by about 10% to $88.9 million. The agency said the cuts were needed to keep a balanced portfolio of missions in operation and in development while grappling with budget pressures.
NASA convened a committee called the Operations Paradigm Change Review (OPCR) to examine the options for implementing those cuts. That review concluded that it would not be possible to operate Chandra at the proposed level of $41.1 million. “This is a serious threat to the observatory,” Rob Kennicutt, an astronomy who served on the OPCR, said at a meeting of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee July 23.
At that meeting, Clampin said he expected NASA to announce its plans for reducing spending on, and operations of, Hubble and Chandra in mid-September during a town hall session. He said then NASA needed to move ahead with plans to reduce spending on those missions even though a final 2025 spending bill would not be complete by then. “We cannot wait,” he said.
Clampin didn’t explain in the Oct. 23 session why the agency was now delaying that decision. In July, there were concerns that the institutions that operate the telescopes would have to lay off staff in anticipation of budget cuts….
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