Post

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

At today's National Academies CAPS (Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences), NASA planetary leadership all but confirmed that the agency is no longer providing the VenSAR radar for the @esa.int ESA EnVision mission. This isn't a surprise, but it's still hugely disappointing. (1/2)

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

Since Trump and his ilk came back to power he's been working to cut science across the federal government. This withdrawal from an international partnership is directly the result of that. NASA has little choice, but it still sucks—especially since I am (or, was) on the VenSAR science team. (2/2)

8 reposts48 likes

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

(3/2) ESA is pressing ahead with the EnVision mission by developing their own VenSAR radar replacement. The mission will still be hugely successful. But when bilateral international agreements are cancelled unilaterally by politicians, US scientific collaborations and *science leadership* suffer.

Dwayne Day
@kennen11.bsky.social

I listened in on some of that meeting. PSD is dancing around the questions, required to speak happy words. For instance, they are doing studies of flagship class missions that are not going to produce anything useful. But they have to do it.

Chris Lee
@cpl43uk.bsky.social

In fairness we Europeans mucked it up in the first place by proposing a mission with a payload that nations (who usually have to fund instrument costs while ESA funds the spacecraft, launch and ops), could not afford to build, and so JPL helped us out of that hole. Then Trump did his thing…