Keith’s note: There is a meeting next week regarding Landsat: Sustainable Land Imaging Mission Alternatives Analysis Team Industry. The meeting is looking for the cheapest way to do the least with Landsat as a result of the President’s FY 2026 Budget Request. The PBR seeks to cancel Landsat missions and descope Earth science budgets at NASA. One small problem: NASA is acting as if the PBR is the actual budget contrary to what Congress is doing. Congress has already complained about this as it was described in last month’s NASA Town Hall Meeting. But NASA is going ahead with this anyway. (More below)
The meeting notice says: “NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is seeking information from potential sources to supply capabilities that meet the minimum observational capabilities of the existing Landsat-9 mission. … NASA’s SMD has stood up the Mission Alternatives Assessment Team (MAAT) as an independent body to advise NASA on options to be responsive to the President’s Budget Request for the Fiscal Year 2026. A SAM.gov notice is available with additional technical details.”
It is rather blunt: they are treating the “President’s Budget Request for the Fiscal Year 2026” as their guidance on programmatic planning even though no FY 2026 budget has been agreed to by Congress, signed into law, etc.
Meanwhile, this is the sort of language Congressional appropriators seek to have in place with regard to Landsat budgets: “Landsat Next. The Committee recognizes the critical importance of the Landsat program in providing continuous, high-quality, and accessible Earth observation data for scientific research, environmental monitoring, resource management, and disaster response. The committee provides $183,000,000 for the Landsat Next Mission and encourages NASA to maintain the current superspectral three-satellite constellation architecture, with a launch target by the end of 2031, to ensure uninterrupted continuity of the Landsat data record.”
Once again OMB is trying to jump the shark and slash a NASA program before Congress can pass a budget. Damage will be done that might not repairable or reversible. Meanwhile, people looking for good Earth resources data will simply go to ESA – or China. And America Will be Less Great In Space.
NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.