One of NASA’s biggest upcoming astrophysics missions has been stopped in its tracks, with the project’s leader blaming mismanagement at the space agency caused by last year’s budget confusion.
AXIS, the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite, was one of two concepts selected for detailed design studies in NASA’s Astrophysics Probe Explorer Programcompetes together with the far-infrared observatory concept PRIMA. AXIS could have replaced NASA’s aging Chandra observatorywhich has been a powerhouse for X-ray astronomy since 1999, but the project comes to an abrupt halt.
An internal email sent March 9 from AXIS principal investigator Christopher Reynolds informed the mission’s international team members that NASA Headquarters has ruled the program ineligible for selection, ending the project’s run before the concept study could undergo full technical review.
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“NASA’s decision was NOT a consideration of the importance of AXIS science,” Reynolds said in the email, which was posted on social media. He said AXIS’ removal from eligibility was linked to disruptions at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Maryland, which managed the mission for a period of extensive loss of workforce and operational stability throughout 2025.
“The mission formulation process was critically compromised by the seismic changes that occurred in NASA and the federal government,” Reynolds wrote.
A major setback was caused by the early retirement of Will Zhang, a researcher who NASA describes as a “mirror-making whiz” for space telescopes.
“The key enabling technology for AXIS is these single-crystal silicon mirror assemblies, developed by Will Zhang at GSFC,” a Goddard scientist familiar with the matter, but not authorized to speak for NASA, told Space.com. “Will always intended to retire soon, but he took the DRP.”
“A key goal of Phase A for AXIS was to get at least one of these mirror assemblies built to prove it could be done. They didn’t get any built,” the researcher said. “It seemed like every week there was an announcement that someone was leaving the AXIS team due to retirement or finding another job, all because of the uncertainty of NASA funding and the really chaotic environment at GSFC.”
The project lost more than 20 GSFC personnel with key expertise as a result of NASA’s Program for deferred termination (DRP) and reorganizations to consistent with the 2026 presidential budget requestaccording to Reynolds’ email, and faced further complications caused by government shutdown last year.
“Work was halted for nearly seven weeks when the GSFC AXIS core group, dominated by NASA officials, was laid off,” Reynolds said. NASA later extended the deadline for the concept study report, but Reynolds wrote that the extension was “inadequate compensation for the disruption and lost time” to address cost and schedule adjustments that had already been identified.
According to the email, Goddard management eventually gave AXIS executives a choice: submit a concept study report with a non-compliant cost and schedule, or not submit one at all. NASA also apparently rejected the AXIS team’s appeal to bring the design into compliance during discussions typically held during the review process, calling that option “unacceptable,” Reynolds said.
Another Goddard scientist not authorized to speak for NASA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Space.com that’s not how it’s usually done. “It’s not at all unusual for a mission concept to be off budget and launch date after their first pass – the first pass you ask for everything you can think of and then you start backtracking to what makes more sense while still meeting the mission requirements,” the researcher said. “The 10% they got turned down isn’t bad at all for a first pass, but they didn’t have time to get multiple offers to get it down.”
They said the blame lies with NASA management.
“Internally, the general consensus is that this is 100% due to Goddard management mismanaging this … this has absolutely nothing to do with the AXIS team, the value of AXIS as a concept in general, and especially not the Goddard scientists, engineers and project managers who have poured their all into this mission and been held back by management every step of the way.”
NASA said the decision followed the agency’s standard selection process for science missions, which includes several checkpoints where mission concepts are evaluated for compliance with established requirements.
“NASA has confirmed that the AXIS (Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) Probe concept did not comply with the 2023 Astrophysics Probe Explorer Announcement of Opportunity,” an agency official told Space.com in an email, adding that more opportunities for X-rays. astrophysics the fellowship will be announced in the coming weeks.
“I’m frankly saddened that AXIS ultimately fell victim to the programmatic chaos of 2025,” Reynolds told the AXIS team, arguing that the decision did not reflect the scientific importance of the mission.
AXIS was not necessarily the front runner against PRIMA, the X-ray space telescope’s competitor in the Astrophysics Probe program. “AXIS was always the riskier of the proposed X-ray probes, and people in the community were generally surprised that they chose AXIS for Phase A,” said one of the Goddard researchers. “Some people think it was chosen because it was the most Chandra-like, and Chandra is old (and) could need replacing.”
Reynolds concluded his message by wishing “a smooth and speedy path to election and flight” to PRIMA, which is still under review. He also noted that other X-ray astronomy projects, such as SMEX and MidEXcan benefit from the research already carried out by the AXIS team.
