Congressional letter urges NASA to reverse Chandra cuts

WASHINGTON – Nine members of Congress have asked NASA to reconsider significant changes to the operations of the Chandra X-ray Observatory linked to proposed cuts to the space telescope’s budget.

In a June 6 letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, the nine members, all Democrats and most from Massachusetts, where Chandra’s operational center is located, expressed their opposition to NASA’s plans in its budget proposal for 2018. fiscal 2025 to cut funding for the 25-year-old. -The old telescope, a move that scientists said could effectively cancel the mission.

“If implemented, these cuts would result in a significant reduction in the FY25 science mission and would initiate a shutdown process in FY26,” the letter said. “The justification for these cuts cites rising mission costs and inefficiencies. But Chandra’s operational efficiency remains near optimal, its costs stable, and its scientific returns per taxpayer dollar extremely high.”

The letter continued that a “premature termination” of Chandra would have major impacts on the X-ray astrophysics community, “potentially spurring talent elsewhere.”

Members urged NASA to maintain full funding for Chandra — $68.7 million, what the agency requested for the telescope in 2024 — “and halt plans for significant reductions in FY25 until Congress determines Chandra’s allocations.” Neither the House nor the Senate have formally introduced fiscal year 2025 spending bills that include NASA, although the House Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations (CJS) subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its bill, which funds NASA- n, at the end of June.

NASA’s proposed 40% cut to Chandra’s budget has received little public attention in House and Senate hearings on the budget request. One exception is an April 17 hearing by the CJS House Appropriations subcommittee, where Rep. Joe Morelle (DN.Y.) asked Nelson to reconsider the proposed cut.

“We had to make tough choices,” Nelson replied, referring to the overall fiscal constraints the agency faced. “Chandra has been the mission that has given us so many gifts, but it’s been there for 25 years and it’s time for new missions.”

The letter comes as NASA is wrapping up a review it announced in March to find ways to lower operating costs for Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope. Speaking at a town hall session of 244^th At the June 10 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said he expected to soon receive the final report from a committee called the Operations Paradigm Shift Review.

“We asked them to look at how we could reduce the cost of operations but also continue to do the best science with these capabilities going forward,” he said of the review. NASA will make an announcement “in due course” of any changes to the operation of the two space telescopes, he said, a process that will include a town hall to discuss with scientists the impacts of those changes.

The review, he acknowledged, included the options of terminating Chandra and Hubble operations, but said that was not a preferred outcome. “We don’t want to stop using Hubble and we don’t want to stop using Chandra. We want to find a cheaper way to do it,” he said. “But we wanted to make sure they were looking at all the options that were possible.”

The letter was signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) and Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) and Susan DelBene (D-Mass.)

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