The Trump administration moves to destroy the satellite which monitors greenhouse gases

The Trump administration’s budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year would bring an ax to the science of NASA. Two satellite missions on blocking provided climatologists, oil and gas companies and farmers critical atmospheric carbon data for years.

Orbit carbon observatories are a pair of instruments that map atmospheric carbon worldwide. NASA launched the OCO-2 in 2014 and set up the OCO-3 on the international space station in 2019. Trump’s budget proposal threatens the two missions, but the autonomous OCO-2 would be completely destroyed during its fiery descent through the atmosphere of the earth. Although the budget has not yet succeeded, NPR reports that NASA scientists working on OCO missions are already making “phase F” plans – mainly with dismissal options.

David Crisp, a retired scientist from NASA who designed the satellites and managed the missions until 2022, told NPA employees doing these plans had contacted his expertise. “They asked me very bright questions,” said Crisp. “The only thing that would have motivated these questions was (that) someone told them to offer a dismissal plan.”

Three other university scientists and two current NASA employees – who all asked for anonymity – also confirmed at NPR that the agency provided for the missions. The Congress has already financed the two satellites until the end of the 2025 fiscal year, reports NPR. He could still choose to extend their funding until 2026, but it remains to be seen. In July, the Democrats of Congress warned the NASA action administrator, Sean Duffy, not to end the missions that the congress financed – a sign that they could try to save the OCO.

The downgrading of these satellites would mark a significant scientific loss. OCO-2 and OCO-3 deny atmospheric carbon dioxide using spectrometers to detect the wavelengths of light absorbed by CO2 molecules. NASA has designed them to improve the monitoring of carbon emissions and variations in carbon, and they have certainly done a good job.

OCO-2 data have helped scientists quantify how natural carbon wells such as forests and oceans compensate for carbon dioxide emissions and how carbon signs can become carbon transmitters by drought, deforestation or forest fires, according to the NASA jet propulsion laboratory. This instrument also provided valuable information on urban carbon dioxide emissions and provided data that supported the Paris Agreement.

That’s not all. Shortly after the launch of the satellite, NASA realized that it could also measure plant growth, according to JPL. He does so by detecting the “Glow” plants emitted during photosynthesis. When plants absorb sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and energy to energy, their chlorophyll – a pigment absorbing light – makes unused photons, explains JPL. This produces a low glow called fluorescence induced by solar, and OCO-2 can identify it. These data help farmers and agricultural scientists believe the productivity of crops, monitor drought, etc.

If Trump’s budget passes, it will mean the end of the OCO-2, but there is hope for the OCO-3. NASA is looking for partnerships with institutions and companies wishing to cover the cost of maintaining this ISS instrument. For the moment, like many programs of American climate sciences and environmental sciences, the future of the two satellites observing the earth is at stake.