SALT LAKE CITY –The head of NASA’s science directorate said the agency remains committed to using small satellites to carry out a variety of missions, although those plans face uncertain budgets.
In a keynote at the Small Satellite Conference here Aug. 11, Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, highlighted the role that smallsats were playing across the Science Mission Directorate, from Earth science to astrophysics.
“Technologies like smallsats allow us to fly more science at a lower cost and at a quicker pace,” she said. “My goal is to put more science into space.”
Fox focused on how smallsats can perform science in ways that can complement larger missions. For example, consider Pandora, a smallsat under development that will study 20 stars known to have exoplanets in order to characterize those planets’ atmospheres.
Those observations require the satellite to spend extended periods of time observing a single star.
“This is something that a very tailored low-cost smallsat mission can do because there are no other demands on its time,” she said, unlike larger missions like the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. “It doesn’t have to immediately change its target and look somewhere else like a point-and-shoot on-demand mission.”
NASA’s use of smallsats for science missions, Fox said, is enabled by growing launch opportunities, particularly through rideshare missions. She cited PUNCH, a space science mission featuring four smallsats, that shared a Falcon 9 launch earlier this year with the larger SPHEREx astronomy mission.
Other missions are taking advantage of NASA’s Venture-Class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract that the agency uses to acquire launches for low-cost missions. “VADR allows us to get science into orbit for less,” she said.
The emphasis on the scientific capabilities of smallsats, though, comes as NASA faces budget pressures. The administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 would cut the agency’s overall budget by one-quarter, while its science and space technology programs face even steeper cuts and dozens of missions are candidates for cancellation.
At a “NASA Update” session before the keynote, held in place of the traditional agency town hall session at the conference, Fox acknowledged those budget pressures and other changes at the agency.
“We are in a very dynamic environment right now and there are a lot of questions,” she said. “We are very much aligning our priorities with those set by the president and the Office of Management and Budget.”
She said that all the details NASA could provide about the budget were those released by the agency in May. Those documents, though, lacked much of the information in past years’ budgets, including how cuts in space technology will hurt funding of smallsat technology development programs.
NASA’s past investments in smallsat technology are bearing fruit, Christopher Baker, program executive for NASA’s Small Satellite Technology Program, said at that session. He cited work in propulsion, communications and autonomy.
All three are essential, he said, for using smallsats in deep space missions. “Our colleagues in the Science Mission Directorate always seem to want more delta V,” or change in velocity, he said.
He didn’t discuss any current contracting opportunities to advance those technologies, though, beyond an announcement of collaboration opportunity where NASA provides expertise and facilities, but no funding, for smallsat technology development.
Budget cuts in science may slow NASA’s ability to use those new technologies for future missions. Fox noted that the annual release of a call for research proposals in her directorate, known as ROSES-25, had fewer categories than in past years. This year’s edition was released in July after a nearly five-month delay.
“I know there’s less in there than you might be used to. There are a lot of placeholders,” she said of ROSES-25. “As resources become available, we will put more opportunities into there.”
Those additional resources may come from pending appropriations bills in the House and Senate that rejected the steep cuts proposed for NASA by the administration. The Senate bill would restore 2025 levels of funding for NASA science programs while the House version reduces the cut.
Those bills are unlikely to become law before the 2026 fiscal year begins Oct. 1, requiring NASA and other agencies to start the year on a stopgap funding bill called a continuing resolution or face a government shutdown. Those in the industry and the science community are concerned that NASA leadership might try to enact the proposed cuts and cancellations in the 2026 proposal once the new fiscal year begins even if House and Senate bills would reject those cuts.
“Right now, we are planning to the limits that were set for us and the resources that were set for us in the president’s budget request,” Fox said. “If there is a continuing resolution, we will just have to navigate that.”
She vowed to be “open and transparent” about any changes to the agency’s operations.
“We are planning and doing the necessary preparations to be able to enact the president’s budget request.”