NASA\u2019s internal restructuring efforts at its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have sparked a formal Congressional inquiry, with lawmakers accusing the agency of prematurely implementing elements of President Trump\u2019s 2026 budget proposal before congressional approval.<\/p>\n
In a letter sent Nov. 10 to Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), ranking member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, ordered NASA to \u201cimmediately halt\u201d all facility closures, relocations, and laboratory dismantling at Goddard, warning the moves could cause \u201csevere and lasting consequences\u201d to NASA\u2019s scientific capabilities.<\/p>\n
Lofgren gave NASA 24 hours to confirm that all closures have ceased and seven days to provide a \u201cfull accounting of the damage inflicted on Goddard thus far.\u201d She also called for an investigation by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG).<\/p>\n
\u201cThis all must end now,\u201d Lofgren wrote. \u201cNASA needs to stop what it is doing at Goddard, explain itself to Congress, and convincingly justify its actions before it can even think about continuing to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The order follows reports that, during the ongoing government shutdown, Goddard administrators have been locking down and clearing out multiple laboratories under the center\u2019s 20-year \u201cMaster Plan.\u201d According to Space.com, as many as 13 major facilities have been marked for closure by March 2026, with employees ordered to pack up labs within days despite being on furlough.<\/p>\n
Scientists working on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, one of NASA\u2019s flagship astronomy missions, said they were given just four days to empty a key laboratory. One Goddard researcher told Space.com, \u201cThere\u2019s potentially millions of dollars of equipment that is being planned to just be abandoned in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lofgren sharply criticized NASA officials who characterized the closures as routine facility modernization. \u201cI reject the explanation that abruptly and haphazardly uprooting employees and millions (at least) of dollars of equipment without a destination or technical justification could reasonably be considered in alignment with any existing \u2018plan,\u2019\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
She further accused NASA leadership of using the government shutdown to accelerate facility closures, calling it \u201ca grave error\u201d and an attempt to \u201ceviscerate NASA science, gut its workforce, and threaten the United States\u2019 leadership in space.\u201d<\/p>\n
The confrontation marks the first formal House oversight action on NASA\u2019s internal restructuring, following a Senate report in September titled \u201cThe Destruction of NASA\u2019s Mission,\u201d which also alleged illegal pre-implementation of the FY 2026 budget.<\/p>\n
If NASA fails to comply, the issue could trigger an OIG probe and expanded Congressional hearings into whether agency leadership violated appropriations law by advancing unapproved budget directives during a federal shutdown.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA\u2019s internal restructuring efforts at its Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have sparked a formal Congressional inquiry, with lawmakers accusing the agency of prematurely implementing elements of President Trump\u2019s 2026 budget proposal before congressional approval. In a letter sent Nov. 10 to Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), ranking member of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1790,6328,680,190],"class_list":["post-20154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-goddard-space-flight-center","tag-maryland","tag-nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}