The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration will fall behind on $2 billion in funding for science projects next year. For this reason, NASA no longer plans to maintain the Chandra X-ray Space Telescope, which will soon be 25 years old.

According to the Universe Today portal, the agency plans to minimize scientific research using the Chandra telescope and at the same time cease to maintain its operational efficiency, which will inevitably lead to the rapid closure of the observatory.

NASA officials note that the telescope broke down extensively during operation and that some systems required active management to maintain the correct temperatures to keep the observatory operating properly, increasing costs that NASA could no longer afford.

As you may remember, the Chandra space observatory went into space in 1999. Although the telescope was originally planned to operate for only five years, it will be 25 years old this July, and the observatory itself has become an important object in the world of X-ray astronomy.

The sad news doesn’t end there, NASA’s budget also provides for a 5% reduction in funding for the Hubble space telescope, although the latter will continue to operate as before.