The White House has instructed NASA to prepare "Phase F" end-of-mission plans for two of its flagship climate-monitoring instruments, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellites OCO-2 and OCO-3, according to internal agency communications seen this week. The move would terminate the only U.S. missions capable of mapping global carbon-dioxide concentrations and photosynthesis activity at high resolution, data that underpin crop-yield models, drought forecasting and climate research. OCO-2, launched in 2014, and its 2019 follow-on OCO-3 collectively cost roughly $750 million to build and launch and require about $15 million a year to operate—less than 0.1 % of NASA’s annual budget. A 2023 NASA review rated their data "exceptionally high quality" and recommended at least three more years of operation. Scientists warn that scuttling OCO-2, which would burn up on re-entry, and de-powering the International Space Station-mounted OCO-3 would create a gap in atmospheric CO₂ measurements just as global emissions auditing requirements intensify. Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren and other lawmakers said the directive may violate congressional control of the agency’s already-appropriated 2025 funds, calling the plan "catastrophic" and vowing oversight. NASA is exploring whether universities or private firms could assume part of the operating costs, but researchers fear loss of open access to the data. The order deepens the administration’s broader challenge to climate science and renewable-energy policies, which in recent days has included threatened funding cuts to the International Energy Agency and a review of offshore-wind regulations. Critics say the satellite shutdown would further limit the federal government’s ability to monitor greenhouse-gas trends even as extreme-weather costs mount.