US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Office (NOAA) Significantly review the program of new geoxo geoxo satellites, replacing it with a much more budget-friendly and smaller-scale alternative. This is stated in the financial offer on 2026 year, sent by NOAA in early April.
Contraction instead of expansion.
The document states, that all major contracts for GeoXO instruments and satellites must be canceled immediately, since the program is on $19,6 billion is unsustainable in terms of costs, does not have the support of Congress and is not in line with international trends.
Instead of the planned six satellites, which were supposed to expand the possibilities of observing the weather, atmosphere and oceans, OMB recommends limiting yourself to only two satellites – for the eastern and western US, by analogy with the current GOES-R series.
The cost of the GeoXO program is planned to be reduced to less than $500 million per year, while not postponing the launch of the first satellite - 2032 year.
End of partnership with NASA.
A separate recommendation is to stop involving NASA in the development of satellites. The document states, that despite the high level of expertise, NASA is not ready to take risks, use fixed contracts and has excessively high administrative costs, which makes further cooperation impractical.
Implications for budgets and departments.
According to the proposal, NESDIS budget (of the NOAA satellite division) in 2026 year will decrease by $44,8 million - to $336 million. The NESDIS and NOAA Ocean Service Education Office will also be closed, the following structural units will also experience a decrease in funding:
Office of Space Commerce
National Center for Environmental Information
Office of Satellite and Product Operations
For the GeoXO program they offer $385 million - on $100 million more, than in 2024 year, but on $306,5 million less than the previous plans.
Restart with new conditions.
OMB expects, sho NOAA re-storm simultaneous GeoXO without NASA, taking into account new budget constraints and reduced functionality. It is suggested to start by using the existing Advanced Baseline Imager instrument from the GOES-R program, to buy time to create a new generation of systems through fixed contracts.
in addition, OMB proposes to review the feasibility of installing a lightning sensor, as terrestrial networks already have similar functions.
What will not be cut?
Near Earth Orbit Network (NEON) will receive the planned $125 million.
Space Weather Next will receive $150 million instead of planned $207 million.
Current GOES-R and polar satellite programs will continue to be supported.
Reaction: criticism and support.
Since the document's release, the discussion has drawn mixed reactions, from disappointment that NOAA's ambitions have been limited to approval of efforts to cut costs and implement more flexible, cheaper approaches.
У Lockheed Martin, which builds GeoXO, stated, that it is too early to comment on unofficial offers, but emphasized the importance of such companions in saving lives, security and military operations.
Source: https://spacenews.com/omb-suggests-noaa-scale-back-plans-for-geostationary-satellites/