The Trump administration has asked NASA employees to draw up plans to end at least two major satellite missions, according to current and former NASA staffers. If the plans are carried out, one of the missions would be permanently terminated, because the satellite would burn up in the atmosphere.
The data the two missions collect is widely used, including by scientists, oil and gas companies and farmers who need detailed information about carbon dioxide and crop health. They are the only two federal satellite missions that were designed and built specifically to monitor planet-warming greenhouse gases.
It is unclear why the Trump administration seeks to end the missions. The equipment in space is state-of-the-art and is expected to function for many more years, according to scientists who worked on the missions. An official review by NASA in 2023 found that “the data are of exceptionally high quality,” and recommended continuing the mission for at least three years.
Both missions, known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories, measure carbon dioxide and plant growth around the globe. They use identical measurement devices, but one device is attached to a stand-alone satellite while the other is attached to the International Space Station. The standalone satellite would burn up in the atmosphere, if NASA pursued plans to terminate the mission.
NASA employees who work on the two missions are making what the agency calls Phase F plans for both carbon-monitoring missions, according to David Crisp, a longtime NASA engineer who designed the instruments and managed the missions until he retired in 2022. Phase F plans lay out options for terminating NASA missions.
Crisp says NASA employees making those termination plans have reached out to him for his technical expertise. “What I have heard is direct communications from people who were making those plans, who weren’t allowed to tell me that that’s what they were told to do. But they were allowed to ask me questions,” Crisp says. “They were asking me very sharp questions. The only thing that would have motivated those questions was [that] somebody told them to come up with a termination plan.”
Three other academic scientists who use data from the missions confirmed that they, too, have been contacted with questions related to mission termination. All three asked for anonymity because they are concerned that speaking about the mission termination plans publicly could endanger the jobs of the NASA employees who contacted them.
Two current NASA employees also confirmed that NASA mission leaders were told to make termination plans for projects that would lose funding under President Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year, or FY 2026, which begins October 1. The employees asked to remain anonymous, because they were told they would be fired if they revealed the request.
Not really. Any news agency worth their salt leaves opinion and speculation to an editorial column / opinion piece, separate from news piece, which presents only facts that they discovered through evidence. It’s unlikely they have any evidence for this specific event.
They could list other climate unfriendly, shoot the messenger, type of actions to put this in context, but that’s not entirely kosher, especially for a state funded agency.
I would have loved for them to just contextualize it. This is imho what’s wrong with most news today, just reporting, no contextualising.
There’s too much to know about, simply reporting the news leaves people desiring context and every shouty asshole gets to peddle their framing without a contextualising media.
I agree, but I understand why NPR specifically didn’t do it. They’re walking a very fine line.
What is Trump gonna do, defund them again?
Use the FCC to revoke their broadcast licenses or even engender claims they violated their existing licenses to draw them into expensive litigation so their residual funds are sapped. Use the IRS to take away their tax exempt status and audit them to empty their coffers. Target their employees and donors with the IRS, FBI, DHS, and who else fucking knows?
Maybe the EPA will claim their buildings are on protected or environmentally sensitive land and spend hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to drag them to endless hearings. Maybe the FTC will threaten payment processors and banks so that NPR will be prevented from receiving donations from anyone.
Send them to a gulag in the worst case scenario. Defunding was really a warning shot.
The article would have made just as much sense without that sentence and stating outright that there isn’t a known reason is, arguably, presenting an opinion not a fact. If they wanted to keep the sentiment while remaining editorially neutral they could have gone with something like “The administration has given no official reason…”.
I agree your last sentence would be better.
But I don’t think they should simply remove the statement entirely. Shining a light on it is a way to instigate the reader to think about the (rather obvious) reasons he’d have to ax these programs.
I think the rest of the article, especially the quotes, make it clear the administration is not even admitting they’re cutting/dismantling this program, in fact they’re trying to keep it secret. So “unclear” opens the question, “why do you think they’re doing this?” And it prods the administration to respond, which would bring it further into the light.