NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Reportedly Holding "Going Out of Business Sale" for Satellites

NASA scientists are furious.

Fire Sale

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is reportedly holding a "going out of business sale" for its satellites, NASA Watch reports.

The list of for-sale assets includes several Earth-monitoring satellites that were once tasked with studying the environment, helping with hurricane prediction efforts, and measuring the effects of climate change. Most launched over the last 20 or so years.

Others, such as the Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer (GLIMR) instrument, have yet to be launched.

According to NASA Watch, a blog run by former NASA astrobiologist Keith Cowing, the satellites were originally "targeted for shut down" in the Trump administration's 2026 budget request.

The budget drew the ire from lawmakers earlier this year, proposing to cut NASA's science directorate's budget by more than half, in "nothing short of an extinction-level event for space science and exploration," per The Planetary Society's chief of space policy, Casey Dreier.

However, "NASA HQ is apparently not waiting for an actual budget," according to Cowing, and is going ahead with the satellite shutdowns anyway, a troubling sign of extremely difficult days ahead for the space agency.

None of this should come as much of a surprise. The Trump administration has been looking to decimate the government's efforts to study the environment, highlighting the president's well-documented climate change denial and ruthlessly anti-science agenda.

Deals! Deals! Deals!

Per NASA Watch, JPL is now trying to offload the satellites to "government and private sector buyers" in an apparent effort to raise funds.

When asked for more details, Cowing said that it's an "evolving story," adding that "I post what I know and can confirm as soon as I can."

The news was met with exasperation by the scientific community, including members currently employed by the space agency.

"We got to keep a sense of humor these days at JPL," JPL senior engineer Luis Amaro wrote in a LinkedIn post, in response to Cowing's "going out of business sale" wording.

"The American people voted for this," Yusef Johnson, mission integration lead of NASA's Artemis IV mission, added. "Snake oil still sells."

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