NASA intends to start disabling premier satellite missions that track climate-warming pollution and other important climate data as early as October, as per the information gathered by CNN from multiple sources within and outside the agency.
The satellites would be left to their own devices, ultimately burning up in a fiery descent as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere. This would continue the trend of the Trump administration’s scaling back on federally funded climate science.
NASA’s Earth science budget in Trump’s 2026 fiscal budget proposal, which starts in October is balanced on a knife’s edge, to quote CNN.
The federally funded missions to monitor greenhouse gas emissions, referred to as The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, are some of the many Earth science victims of the proposal.
Formerly operational satellites are also planned to be terminated, including the long-lived Aqua satellite, that also carried advanced Earth imaging devices, the MODIS which assists in wildfire detection and the Terra and Aura missions. Enacted precidiotale satellites which would measure with high precision solar radiation, heavy rainfall, and dense clouding are also at risk.
Scientists involved with the projects have noted a consistent trend of diminished support for climate science that occurs simultaneously with the Trump administration’s attempts to eliminate the OCO and other missions.
Reference Website:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/13/climate/nasa-satellites-trump-budget-cuts-weather
