NASA is conducting a review of Hubble and Chandra operations with a view to reducing costs. The review is driven by financial pressures within the overall NASA Astrophysics Budget, not by any deficiencies in Hubble science or operational performance. The Hubble budget covers the following items:

• Mission operations at GSFC and STScI, including:
  • routine operations, flight software, anomaly response;
  • telescope & instrument operations, commanding, health and safety;
  • user support, planning and scheduling
  • instrument calibration, data pipeline maintenance, archives, tools, high-level science products (HLSPs);
  • Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC) and grant administration;
  • outreach and engagement;
• Multi-year General Observer (GO) and Archival Research (AR) grants for the US community;
• The NASA Hubble-Einstein-Sagan Fellowship Program.

The Hubble budget has been ~$98.3 million since 2012. The FY25 President's Budget Request is $88.9 million, including ~$8 million for the Fellowship program. This amounts to a ~20% reduction.

The STScI and GSFC Hubble Team made a presentation to the Operational Paradigm Change Review (OPCR) committee on May 8, 2024, where we outlined a number of options for continued operations under the reduced FY25 budget.

Guiding Criteria and Likely Outcomes

Our proposals were tied to the following key criteria:

• Maintain operations, Hubble's unique UV/optical capabilities & grant support;
• Balance between continued science operations and community needs for science;
• Maintain support for a diverse user community without building in disparity.

NASA has not yet provided feedback. However, budget reductions will result in significant impacts to Hubble operations, including a reduced suite of instruments. In particular, it is likely that we will have to:

• Halt WFC3/IR operations;
• Halt ACS/WFC operations;
• Halt support for creating and hosting high-level science products;
• Reduce the level of grant funding to the community;
• Reduce the level of support for public outreach;
• Consider possible impacts for other instruments depending on the scale of budget reductions;
• Move to a fully-virtual TAC process;
• Halt Mid-Cycle proposing opportunities.

We will not take any irreversible actions to until we receive formal instructions from NASA.

NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee meeting, July 23-24

The OPCR recommendations were presented by Prof. Rob Kennicutt on the morning of July 23. The presentation was followed by a 30 minute committee discussion. The OPCR presentation is linked here. The findings included the following statements for both Hubble and Chandra

• Operations are highly streamlined and optimized after years of improvements - even small budget cuts require losses of serviced and capabilities
• Operations costs are mostly staff: significant cuts would require RIFs, with legal implications and irreversibility
• Ending either of these missions now would be premature and would have a large, permanent impact on science and the astronomical community.

Following the OPCR, NASA indicated that Hubble should plan to the FY24 budget ($93.3 million). 

NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee meeting, November 7 & 8 2024 and Senior Review

Mark Clampin gave the astrophysics division update at the November APAC meeting. He stated (slide 14) that decisions on funding for Chandra and Hubble have been suspended pending the results from the 2025 HST Senior Review. Hubble has been charged with providing an in-guide operations plan that matches the funding levels in the President's Budget Request ($87.9 million for FY26) and have been instructed to maintain full funding for the NHFP Hubble-Sagan- Einstein program (~$8 million). The Hubble Senior Review proposal was submitted on December 11; the Hubble team will make a presentation to the review committee in February; the final decisions expected around June 2025.

Observing Impacts

• We will complete Cycle 31 and earlier cycles as originally submitted.
• All Cycle 32 programs will be executed as submitted
• Depending on the outcome of the Senior Review, support for ACS/WFC and WFC3/IR may be significantly reduced in Cycle 33 and subsequent cycles, so those instrument modes are offered as shared risk.

Further information can be found in presentations to the STUC on April 3, 2024, from their June 26-27, 2024 and December 5-6 meetings, and from the October 23 STScI HST Community Town Hall .

We will aim to keep program investigators and the community informed as we learn more from NASA. 

Community members with questions should direct them to hst_opcr@stsci.edu.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has STScI considered continuing to operate instruments in a partially or unsupported mode of operations?

We are exploring options in this area. We will not turn instruments off, but much of HST science depends on high fidelity calibration of the data, and that will no longer be possible under partial support. These instruments may be offered in future cycles beyond Cycle 33, but users may need to accept no in-house support.

What is the rationale for de-prioritising WFC3-IR and ACS/WFC?

All of HST’s instrument continue to produce first rate science; the decision to halt observations with a subset is based on the resources available. STScI has prioritized the unique UV capabilities of Hubble. ACS/WFC and WFC3-IR are redundant to some extent, since ACS/WFC has similar capabilities to WFC3-UVIS and WFC3-IR overlaps with JWST capabilities.

What will be the level of community grant funding for Cycle 32?

That depends on the level of budget cuts from NASA. STScI has continued grant-funding obligations to programs from past HST cycles, and that will also affect the level of funding available for new programs.

When will the results of the OPCR be known?

NASA indicated at the summer AAS (June 10) that it plans to hold a Town Hall meeting within ~2 months of that meeting.

Is the OPCR related to Hubble’s move to Reduced Gyro Mode?

No: Hubble continues to produce fore-front science under RGM; the budget reductions from the OPCR are solely the result of financial pressures with NASA Astrophysics.

If observations with WFC3-IR or ACS/WFC are halted, can they be re-started quickly if funding becomes available?

No; STScI will have re-assigned personnel, and there may be contractual requirements that would preclude re-hiring new staff to support those instruments.

What are the implications of halting support for Higher-Level Science Products? Does this affect all HLSPs?

The extent of the impact depends on the budget reductions. At the very least, we expect that it will not be possible to create and support new HLSPs, whether from in-house instrument team work or supplied externally by community programs. The impact on current HLSP holdings remains unclear.

I received an AR notification email. Does that mean that my program was approved pending budget decisions?

No; All AR proposers received the same notification. We will provide further information when it becomes available from NASA.