As the US federal government’s shutdown drags on, NASA staffers are raising concerns over a dozen buildings on its Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) main campus in Maryland being emptied without notice.
The campus serves as the headquarters for some extremely important missions, including NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.
Highly specialized equipment is at risk of being thrown away like trash, according to internal communications reviewed by CNN. For instance, a building housing Goddard’s ElectroMagnetic Anechoic Chamber (GEMAC), an extremely important piece of equipment for testing spacecraft antennas, is being shuttered.
“It’s like taking a Maserati to the junkyard to get crushed because your driver’s license expired,” a source told CNN. “The GEMAC is fully operational and could go on for many more years to support in-house, out of house, and the industry (like it has for several decades).”
“Many NASA scientists are concerned they could permanently lose access to equipment and facilities they need to conduct planned NASA missions, throwing future space science research into peril,” international space science advocacy group Advancing Earth and Space Science wrote in a draft letter to legislators.
The closures could impact the launch of the JWST’s successor, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, as well as its Dragonfly program, which is hoping to send a large helicopter to Saturn’s largest moon — concerns that a NASA spokesperson has since denied.
A NASA spokesperson told the broadcaster that the closures are all part of an existing “strategic consolidation” plan that shouldn’t impact existing projects.
Yet roughly 100 laboratories across 13 buildings of the campus’s more than 30 structures are being closed. Many of the affected buildings weren’t meant to be shut down until the early 2030s.
Despite the agency’s reassurances, it’s nonetheless concerning that the Trump administration is quietly dismantling the GSFC’s campus during an ongoing shutdown, yet another sign that the space agency is being taken apart piece by piece, even as large swathes of the government remain unfunded.
Morale has taken a huge hit as the agency continues to be put under immense pressure, with staffers worrying that Trump may make good on his threat of not paying them back for unpaid labor during the shutdown.
“Getting rid of Goddard removes the entire nation’s capability to build, develop and analyze data from space science satellites,” a Goddard engineer told CNN.
“It feels like an existential crisis; Goddard will either no longer exist at all or no longer exist the way it should,” the employee added.
Others say the rapid downscaling is not even saving the agency any money.
“I can’t understand why our management would want to internally sabotage our capabilities,” a source told the broadcaster. “They haven’t communicated any rationale other than they’re trying to save money, but the things they’re doing don’t actually seem to save money.”
NASA’s fate remains in the balance. Experts have long warned that the White House’s 2026 budget proposal for the agency could deal it a devastating blow, slashing its science funding by more than half. Goddard’s science staff could be reduced by 42 percent, the American Astronomical Society warned in June.
The Planetary Society has called the proposed budget “nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration in the United States.”
While the budget hasn’t technically passed, NASA insiders are worried the Trump administration is moving forward with its plan anyway. An agency spokesperson told CNN that NASA is “planning for multiple FY26 scenarios,” but will still “continue to comply with the law.”
More on NASA: NASA Issues Horrified Response to Kim Kardashian