NASA Chief Sees ESA Filling Gaps Left By Budget Cuts

LE BOURGET—Europe will need to step up its role in space as NASA’s budget falls and the U.S. agency focuses its resources on sending humans to the Moon and Mars, says acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget calls for scaling back NASA’s budget to pre-Apollo levels, gutting science and aeronautics programs. The White House plan would end several high-profile projects that NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are collaborating on, including the Orion deep space capsule, lunar Gateway space station and Mars Sample Return mission.

But Petro maintains the U.S. and Europe will continue to partner in space, even as American priorities shift. “We are absolutely working through it with them,” Petro told Aviation Week in an interview at the Paris Air Show.  “On this side of the pond, they’re going to have to pick up some of the things that we were going to have to do before.”

“We’re going to have to make adjustments as we look to the [Trump] administration priorities, which are clearly in human exploration of space, back to the Moon and Mars,” she added. “What we’re really working out is how we’re going to do it.”

Petro, the director of the Kennedy Space Center, has run NASA on an acting basis since Trump took office on Jan. 20. Her tenure was extended earlier this month when Trump abruptly withdrew his nomination of space entrepreneur Jared Issacman as NASA administrator days before Issacman was expected to win bipartisan confirmation in the U.S. Senate.

Petro said her meetings with European space officials in Paris have been friendly and productive. She noted that ESA’s Ministerial Council in November is expected to endorse robust spending increases. 

“The Europeans are really looking to step up to where they can contribute more to gaps,” Petro said. “I think we need to work it out together and figure out what their contributions are and how can they strengthen them even more.”

But she also acknowledged there is opposition to some of Trump’s cuts in the U.S. Congress, which has the final say on NASA’s budget. “I’ve met with a number of lawmakers here,” she said. “We will execute on whatever budget is appropriated.”