In a further indication of Congress' position on the SLS and Orion programs, lawmakers set aside more than $4 billion for the procurement of SLS rockets for the Artemis IV and Artemis V rockets in the reconciliation bill signed into law by President Donald Trump earlier this month.

Nearly 4,000 NASA employees have chosen to accept the Trump administration's "deferred resignation" option, reducing the agency's workforce by more than 20%.

Nearly 4,000 NASA employees have opted to leave the space agency through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, NASA said on Saturday.

The US space agency NASA will lose about 3,900 employees under Donald Trump's sweeping effort to trim the federal workforce—at the same time as the president prioritizes plans for crewed missions to the moon and Mars.

The recent United States government's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that was recently signed into law has good news for the future of crewed spaceflight — but at the same time, Trump's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year nearly annihilates NASA science missions.

NASA is slashing nearly more than 20 percent of its workforce as part of President Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government since returning to the White House. Nearly 4,000 workers have requested to depart the space agency through two rounds of the deferred resignation program.

More than 280 current and former employees across all NASA centers and directorates decry “rapid and wasteful changes.”