CEDAR email: GDC Pause, FY24 Budget Request

[Leisner, Jared S. (HQ-DJ000)]

The FY2024 President's Budget Request proposes to pause the Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) development. Due to high budgetary requirements for other Agency priorities, the Science Mission Directorate cannot support full GDC development activities in the next few years. This proposal is not a cancellation, but a hold while next steps are assessed as part of the budget and decadal survey processes.
GDC addresses key objectives central to NASA heliophysics and has been repeatedly recognized as a high-priority scientific investigation of the upper atmosphere. It was recommended by the 2013 Decadal Survey as this decade's Living With a Star project. In 2020, the Decadal Survey Mid-Term Assessment affirmed the continued priority of the science. NASA convened a GDC Independent Review Board, which emphasized not only the continued scientific importance but also the key contributions that GDC would make to national priorities, such as space weather and space situational awareness.
The proposals in the President's Budget Request do not reflect on the Project Office, the science team, or the science value of the GDC mission. The GDC project has performed admirably over the past three and a half years.

NASA is awaiting the Congressional response to the President's Budget Request as part of the FY2024 appropriations cycle. As that process takes place, NASA is continuing full execution of planned activities in FY2023 while developing plans for a pause. Those plans are intended to ensure that any pause would be sustainable for GDC and would leave the project in a posture from which it can resume full formulation activities when NASA receives that guidance.
The full NASA budget request can be found at https://www.nasa.gov/budget.
Any questions about the GDC pause should be directed to Jared Leisner, GDC Program Scientist (jared.s.leisner at nasa.gov).
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