NASA recently released its 2025 budget proposal, which requests a budget of US$1.58 billion for the Astrophysics Department. In the proposal, NASA significantly reduces the budget of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the budget of the Hubble Space Telescope is also reduced.
The proposed budget for the Hubble Space Telescope in 2025 is US$88.9 million, a slight decrease from US$98.3 million in 2024; while the budget of the Chandrasekhar X-ray Observatory has been reduced from US$68.3 million in 2023 to US$41.1 million in 2025, and will be further reduced to US$26.6 million.
In budget documents, NASA said the budget cuts for the Chandra X-ray Observatory will orderly downsize the mission to a minimum of operations. NASA argued that the observatory has continued to degrade over the life of its mission to the point where multiple systems need to be actively managed to keep spacecraft temperatures within acceptable limits, including data scheduling and post-processing becoming more complex and increasing mission management costs beyond what NASA can afford.
The funds NASA receives mainly come from the U.S. Congress. These budgets must be approved by the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Congress does not always give money readily, so it is estimated that it will also be difficult for NASA.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched in 1999 and is mainly used to observe X-rays. It is named in honor of the Indian-American physicist and astronomer Subramanyan Chandrasekhar.
X-rays can be used to analyze collisions of massive celestial bodies and study black holes. This observatory has made many achievements since its launch, so it is now very shocking to astrophysicists that it will be gradually decommissioned.
Currently, some astrophysicists have launched a campaign called Save Chandra, calling on more astrophysicists and the public to take action to save the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Of course, they also know that NASA cannot be blamed for this matter. After all, NASA's expenditure reduction is mainly due to financial pressure.