Will the US government ever again allow public posting of updated GRACE-FO data (the data showing melting of Greenland and Antarctic ice cap)?

The most recent data point on the NASA website is as of May 16, 2025. So, it’s about 9 months old. Offhand, I’d say usually there is a lag of about 2-4 months between the last data point and when it is posted.

I’ve been checking this chart once in awhile for more than a decade. Once in awhile when they got behind, I would send in an email through their system and I would get a professional response and sometimes they would take it as helpful to have members of the public making a polite inquiry. However, if I recall, when I inquired about this recently, I think I was redirected toward another person? I was already going on the guess that the present US Administration would downsize or otherwise get this data out of the limelight, so, not having stamina for the fight, I just gave up at that time.

Presumably this is an expensive mission (two satellites, launched by SpaceX) to launch and somewhat expensive to maintain. I wonder if Musk had anything to do with reducing funding to the mission (if that’s what has happened?).

One wildcard here is that, last I checked, the mission is carried out as a “joint project” with the German organization GFZ:

[https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/grace-fo](https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/grace-fo)

I think it’s then fair to ask the question, even if NASA does not want to put in the work or money to fund processing the data or posting it to the public, if this part of the work could quietly be taken over by GFZ, thus helping to preserve the accuracy and usefulness of the mission during the anti-science Trump years. During the years when the original GRACE mission was down (while waiting for new satellites to be put into orbit, around 2017), my recollection i that GFZ did play a role in posting of some data, though I think it was not an easy thing. Since then, my impression is that GFZ has sunsetted any posting of the data to the public that I had come to rely on, though I am not sure.

[https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/closed-projects/grace-gravity-recovery-and-climate-experiment-mission](https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/closed-projects/grace-gravity-recovery-and-climate-experiment-mission)

I didn’t realize there is a third GRACE mission planned for 2028:

[https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/grace-c-gravity-recovery-and-climate-experiment-continuity](https://www.gfz.de/en/section/global-geomonitoring-and-gravity-field/projects/grace-c-gravity-recovery-and-climate-experiment-continuity)

[edit to add]
My guess is that GFZ cannot independently process and post the data. Aside from any technical difficulties of doing this, my guess is that if GFZ did do it, and the climate-change-following public once again had updated access to an understandable presentation of the data, then someone in the Trump administration would take notice and use this as an excuse to question GFZ’s role in the mission. So, politically and economically, it could be a gamble (again this is purely my speculation). They might choose to consider it, but I’m just saying, I wonder if this could lead the Germans to being harmed in their ability to participate in the project, since (I’m guessing) someone in the Administration is happy to have this climate-relevant and valuable data not posted in an updated and accurate way.