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NASA budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump will cause a significant funding shortfall to Europe's space science missions. But the European Space Agency hopes it can save them. | Space Skip to main content Don't miss these Artemis ESA ships Artemis 4 Orion service module to NASA after Trump tried to cancel it Venus These 5 Venus missions could launch in the next decade to study Earth's 'evil twin' Space Exploration NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say Space Exploration Bill Nye and the Planetary Society hold 'Save NASA Science' day of action on Capitol Hill Space Exploration 'We've known it's been coming for a while': Inside the decision to eliminate the UK Space Agency The moon US in real danger of losing the moon race to China, experts tell Senate Space Exploration 'We have to fully fund NASA': Lawmaker joins space agency employees in protest outside DC headquarters Mars Did NASA's Perseverance rover actually find evidence of life on Mars? 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(Image credit: ESA) Flagship European space science missions conducted in collaboration with NASA face a possible combined funding shortfall of nearly $2 billion due to budget cuts put forward by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. The European Space Agency hopes its member states will come to the rescue.Representatives of the European Space Agency's (ESA) 23 member states are set to meet at the end of November in Bremen, Germany, to decide the agency's direction for the next three years and agree on its next triennial budget.At this meeting — known as the ESA Ministerial Council — the member states will have to tackle a major conundrum. The Trump administration has requested sweeping cuts to funding of NASA, a key ESA partner, which affects several high-profile science missions that are actually led by the European agency. Although the U.S. Congress and Senate have pledged to restore at least some of that funding, discussions about NASA's 2026 budget have not yet been concluded, and ESA will therefore be deciding in the dark. You may like Bill Nye and the Planetary Society hold 'Save NASA Science' day of action on Capitol Hill These 5 Venus missions could launch in the next decade to study Earth's 'evil twin' ESA ships Artemis 4 Orion service module to NASA after Trump tried to cancel it Among the critically endangered missions are the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational wave observatory, the Venus orbiter EnVision and the proposed X-ray telescope New Athena.LISA, which began construction earlier this year, would be hit particularly hard. Consisting of three identical spacecraft flying in a triangular formation 1.5 million miles (2.4 million kilometers) apart, the planned mission relies on high-tech equipment from NASA worth up to $1 billion, according to the Planetary Society, a nonprofit space exploration advocacy group. Several ESA-led space missions will suffer if Donald Trump's budget cuts go ahead. (Image credit: ESA)EnVision is expected to receive from NASA a novel synthetic aperture radar instrument worth an estimated $300 million. The severely delayed ExoMars rover, a life-hunting robot named Rosalind Franklin, also needs a little help from NASA to make it to its destination. That help is estimated at around $375 million, according to the Planetary Society. Further contributions were intended for the planned X-ray mega space observatory New Athena, the exoplanet observer Ariel and 15 other smaller science missions.These estimates are based on NASA budget pledges released in the final year of the administration of President Joe Biden, Casey Dreier, the chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, told Space.com.Get the Space.com NewsletterBreaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsA source familiar with the situation inside ESA who didn't want to be named said the agency believed it "can absorb the impact," provided that it has "a good ministerial outcome for those missions." In other words, ESA will likely have to persuade its member states to fork out hundreds of millions of euros on top of earlier funding commitments to get those missions off the ground. The source added that technical capabilities exist in Europe to make up for NASA's withdrawal.The source said the agency has already "initiated tenders" with European industry to look for possible replacements of the NASA components for the sun-orbiting LISA mission — that is, the spacecraft's onboard telescopes and lasers. Although the member states' support for this rescue action has not yet been secured, ESA wants to sign early development contracts with selected providers in January. The agency plans a similar pathway for EnVision."We are discussing with our member states about their ambition to take responsibility for one or more of the NASA elements should we need to take recovery actions," the source said. "By the middle of next year, we expect to be in a position to decide on the way forward, with clarity on NASA funding and member state ambition and funding. Then we will either stop the development contracts or continue them." You may like Bill Nye and the Planetary Society hold 'Save NASA Science' day of action on Capitol Hill These 5 Venus missions could launch in the next decade to study Earth's 'evil twin' ESA ships Artemis 4 Orion service module to NASA after Trump tried to cancel it ESA previously expected to pay around $1.9 billion for LISA, with additional contributions coming individually from several member states, including Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., the Netherlands and Switzerland.To be launched no earlier than 2035, the three spacecraft of the LISA constellation will be connected with laser links to detect minuscule changes in the position of free-floating reflectors inside each of the spacecraft. In these measurements, researchers will be able to spot tiny vibrations caused by the passage of gravitational waves.Due to the vast distances between the spacecraft and their position outside Earth's gravity well, LISA promises to open a new realm of possibilities in gravitational wave research. Gravitational wave detectors on Earth, such as the U.S. Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), excel at spotting waves triggered by collisions of small black holes. LISA, on the other hand, is designed to detect smash-ups of supermassive black holes, the enormous monsters with masses of billions of suns that reside at galactic centers.EnVision, too has a unique role, especially after the Trump budget proposal entirely cancelled NASA's other two planned Venus research missions, DaVinci and VERITAS. EnVision's task is to study geological and atmospheric processes on Venus to explain why the planet evolved so differently compared to Earth.Perhaps most painful is the situation of Rosalind Franklin, Europe's first Mars rover. The robot, fitted with a 6.6-foot (2 meters) drill, is designed to search for signs of life underneath the Martian surface. The mission, originally slated for a 2018 launch, already survived an American betrayal in 2012, when the Obama administration withdrew NASA's participation in the project.Back then, ESA turned to Russia to rescue the mission. ExoMars was ready to launch in 2022 atop a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, however, ESA terminated that cooperation. The agency's member states agreed to provide an additional 360 million Euros ($417 million US) to build a new landing platform for the rover to replace the one supplied by Russia. And NASA stepped back in, offering a launcher, braking retro-rockets and plutonium-based radio isotope heaters. The aging rover is now waiting in a clean room in Milan for a planned launch in 2028.Another inside source that didn't wish to be named told Space.com that ESA received some "positive news" from the U.S. side, suggesting that NASA funding for the mission may be reinstated."It looks quite positive, so we're planning still on the launch as it was foreseen," the source said.The sources said that ESA has high hopes for the Ministerial Council later this month, even hoping to secure an increase in overall budget contributions compared to the 16.9-billion-euro ($19.6 billion) budget agreed in 2022.The conference, however, comes amid growing tension with Russia, a development that's putting pressure on European countries to increase their defense spending. Germany, for example, pledged to invest 35 billion Euros ($41 billion) into military space technologies over the next five years, which is on par with ESA's entire budget. France, too, is increasing its space defense investment, and many other nations have announced purchases of spy and communications satellites for military purposes.In the U.S., the battle over the NASA budget is not yet over. Both the Senate and House versions of the 2026 funding proposal push to continue supporting LISA and EnVision, Dreier said.In the meantime, insider reports indicate that NASA's leadership is moving on, implementing the proposed cuts without Trump's budget request having been approved."The difficulty is if NASA leadership decides to pull out of the commitments already made and continue to request cancelling the work. That makes it very uncertain, from ESA's perspective, to rely on NASA," said Dreier. "Even if this year's funding comes through, who's to say that the administration wouldn't be effective in cancelling it next year? Or three years down the road?" Tereza PultarovaSenior WriterTereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Logout Read more These 5 Venus missions could launch in the next decade to study Earth's 'evil twin' Bill Nye and the Planetary Society hold 'Save NASA Science' day of action on Capitol Hill ESA ships Artemis 4 Orion service module to NASA after Trump tried to cancel it 'We have to fully fund NASA': Lawmaker joins space agency employees in protest outside DC headquarters 'We've known it's been coming for a while': Inside the decision to eliminate the UK Space Agency US in real danger of losing the moon race to China, experts tell Senate Latest in Space Exploration Orbiting satellite uses AI to reorient itself in 'major step towards full autonomy in space' SpaceX Starship timeline delays astronaut moon landing for NASA's Artemis 3 mission to 2028: Report FAA lifts ban on daytime rocket launches after government shutdown ends Chinese astronauts to get replacement spacecraft after debris strike leaves them without a ride home SpaceX launches 2 rockets less than 4 hours apart from Florida's Space Coast (video) Watch Blue Origin's huge New Glenn rocket ace its epic landing on a ship at sea (video) Latest in News Will Europe's flagship space science missions survive NASA's budget cuts? 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Will Europe's flagship space science missions survive NASA's budget cuts?