Editor’s note: NASA Science Mission Directorate held a Community Town Hall on 26 October 2026. One of the questions that was posted in advanced was asked concerning NASA Astrobiology. Audio below
Transcript.
NASA SMD Host “Is NASA going to cancel its astrobiology program?”
NASA Science Mission Directorate AA Nicky Fox: “No, absolutely not. Definitely, definitely, definitely not. It’s one of our major thrusts in SMD is the search for life elsewhere in the universe. And are we alone in the universe?
But, you know, to note, since its creation, the management has been in the Planetary Science Division and this is unchanged, you know, to simplify the proposing process and encourage more projects which cross traditional subdiscipline silos, we’ve, you know, the Planetary Science Division did merge several related grants programs, things like emerging worlds, solar system workings, Exobiology, and they put those into a single solicitation called Solar System Science.
And so they have the Interdisciplinary Consortium for Astrobiology Research, which which is the ICAR program, still exists and will be competed very soon. So astrobiology very much growing and thriving here in SMD.
I’ll just note with missions coming up like Europa Clipper, Dragonfly, Perseverance doing all its amazing things, looking at the coronagraph on Roman and looking forward to habitable worlds, I think astrobiology is in a good, pretty good place.”
Astrobiology,
