Solar Dynamics Observatory Budget Alert

Keith’s note: the following is circulating on space social media platforms: 🚨 HELIOPHYSICS ALERT 🚨 Steel yourselves, #heliophysics friends. I need to share some deeply concerning news about the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). NASA has laid out a budget trajectory for the mission that should alarm everyone in the heliophysics community. We already are experiencing an 18% retroactive cut for FY26. But now we’re being asked to plan for more in our upcoming Senior Review: Full post below

That’s an almost 50% cut over three years (FY27-29), and a 55% cut overall (FY30+) — for a mission the decadal survey explicitly identified as critical. With no SDO follow-on mission even on the drawing board.

For our team at JSOC/HMI, a 50%+ cut means going from ~12 FTE to fewer than 6. You cannot maintain instrument calibration, JSOC operations, and quality data production at that staffing level. Full stop. I don’t yet know the specific numbers or impacts for the AIA and EVE instrument teams, the ground station at White Sands, or the mission support team at GSFC — but the overall budget picture affects all of us.

As a colleague put it today: you can skip the oil changes, drive on bald tires, water down the gas, stop cleaning the windshield — but eventually the car stops running. And sometimes it doesn’t stop quietly.

☀️ SDO has been watching the Sun continuously for 15 years. It is the foundation on which heliophysics and space weather forecasting rests in the US and abroad. Is this how that legacy ends? — not with a planned transition, but with a slow bleed out.

👀 BE AWARE that these cuts are by no means exclusive to SDO. Many other NASA missions, including multiple in the Heliophysics Division, are seeing similar cuts. Know that I can only report on the information I have. I am happy to share similar news about other missions if it comes to me.

📢 CALL TO ACTION: If this concerns you, please share and speak up. Make noise. The heliophysics community needs to be loud about this

Contact the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (Chair Rep. Brian Babin, Ranking Member Rep. Zoe Lofgren) and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (Chair Sen. Ted Cruz, Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell).