How NASA advisory committees are navigating a new political landscape

Since the start of the second Trump administration, NASA’s formal advisory committees have largely been suspended. While the congressionally mandated Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee has continued its work, the NASA Advisory Council and its committees have been on hold, and it’s uncertain when they might resume.

When they do, there will be changes. The agency said earlier this year that, in response to executive orders, it would eliminate a set of advisory subcommittees devoted to specific science disciplines: astrophysics, planetary science, Earth science, heliophysics and biological and physical sciences. A single science committee would replace those subcommittees.

Also in play was a separate subset of committees, known as analysis groups or assessment groups, or simply AGs, in ast