NASA says long-running budget shortfalls may lead to ISS crew and research reductions

WASHINGTON — NASA says a “multi-year” budget shortfall even before the proposed cuts in the fiscal year 2026 budget request have led the agency to consider reductions in crew size and research on the International Space Station.

At a May 20 press conference about the upcoming Ax-4 private astronaut mission to the station, Dana Weigel, NASA ISS program manager, was asked about language in the top-level fiscal year 2026 budget proposal that seeks to reduce spending on the ISS by half a billion dollars, part of $6 billion in overall cuts to the agency.

The so-called “skinny” budget also mentioned reductions in the crew size and research on the station, without providing details. The research that would be performed on the station, it stated, “would be focused on efforts critical to the Moon and Mars exploration programs.”

Weigel said NASA was facing resource problems with the ISS before the cuts proposed for fiscal year 2026. “Today, the station has been faced with a cumulative multi-year budget reduction,” she said, including the continuing resolution that funded NASA at 2024 levels for all of fiscal year 2025.

“That’s the challenge that I’ve had that we’ve been managing through today,” she said. “That has left us with some budget and resource challenges that result in less cargo,” including crew supplies.

NASA officials have not previously discussed publicly any issues about a shortfall in ISS cargo, although there have been concerns privately within industry about cargo reductions to the ISS. Those have been exacerbated recently by damage to a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft during shipment that led the company and NASA in March to scrap the mission, which had previously slipped from February to June.

Whie NASA has flown four or five cargo missions to the station per year in the last several years, no more than three are planned in 2025, including the SpX-32 cargo Dragon mission currently at the station. SpX-33 is scheduled to launch in August, followed by a new Cygnus spacecraft on the NG-23 mission as soon as the fall.

Those cargo shortfalls, Weigel said, have led NASA to consider reducing the size of the crew on the station’s U.S. segment — which includes Canada, Europe and Japan — from four astronauts to three. “We’re evaluating the potential for moving to three crew. That’s something that we’re working through and trying to assess today,” she said.

Those reviews predate the proposed cuts in the White House’s 2026 budget proposal. “We haven’t really worked through specific plans for that,” she said, citing a focus on the current challenges as well as day-to-day ISS operations. “When we see the full president’s budget request, we’ll take a look at those details to really understand what changes or adjustments will need to be made.”

Final preparations for Ax-4

Weigel did not state if those potential cutbacks would affect NASA’s ability to support private astronaut missions, or PAMs, like Axiom Space’s Ax-4. This will be the fourth PAM to the ISS and NASA issued a call for proposals in April for two more PAM missions in 2026 and 2027.

Later in the briefing, though, she hailed the benefits of PAMs. “One of the huge benefits that we’ve realized with these private astronaut missions is not just the number of experiments,” she said, “but each country who comes brings something different than what we have in the normal suite of what we see in our research.”

“My hope and my goal would be that we continue to maximize everything we can on missions like this just to help with overall science and return on investment with station,” she said.

The Ax-4 mission is scheduled to launch June 8 on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The mission slipped from earlier in the spring when NASA and SpaceX decided to swap the spacecraft originally assigned to Ax-4, Endurance, with a new spacecraft previously assigned to Crew-10. That prevented further delays to the Crew-10 mission because of work needed to complete the new Crew Dragon.

Some last-minute issues with the new Crew Dragon caused another slip in the Ax-4 launch from May 29 to June 8. Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX, said that included replacing a wire harness in the spacecraft that didn’t pass a pre-flight inspection as well as swapping out parachutes after discovering moisture in the bag those parachutes are packed in.

She noted that SpaceX has flown about six Dragon missions a year, both crew and cargo, a number that will hold in 2025. However, those six missions will all launch within six months, from the Crew-10 launch in March to SpX-33 in late August. “The team hasn’t missed a beat” despite the compressed schedule, she said.

The upcoming Ax-4 mission, commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, will send astronauts from Hungary, India and Poland to the ISS for about two weeks. The four will conduct about 60 experiments during the mission, the most to date on a PAM. They will also perform outreach activities such a live downlink featuring Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla and a NASA crewmember.

The Ax-4 will have an additional responsibility: christening the new Crew Dragon spacecraft, a role that the first crews of previous Crew Dragon spacecraft have had. “It will soon get its nickname from the crew,” Walker said, although neither Axiom nor SpaceX would disclose it during the briefing. “No spoilers today.”

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