Alarm is growing among federal workers at NASA’s iconic Goddard Space Flight Center’s main campus in Greenbelt, Maryland — the nerve center for groundbreaking missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes — as more than a dozen buildings on the campus are being emptied and padlocked during the federal shutdown, with very little notice to employees, said four sources who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. NASA leadership has pushed back against those concerns.

In one instance, furloughed employees were given just days to temporarily return to work and help empty entire buildings of highly specialized equipment, according to sources and internal emails obtained by CNN. In the communications, NASA managers wrote that equipment not moved in time — including one-of-a-kind hardware — could be thrown away or donated.

In a statement, a NASA spokesperson said the building closures are part of a “strategic consolidation” plan mapped out by Goddard leaders that should not impact ongoing projects.

But some of the sources CNN spoke with say they fear the sudden moves are part of an effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to quietly gut the Maryland Goddard campus while the government remains unfunded — a claim the spokesperson denied.

Trump’s April budget proposal would have slashed the center’s funding and workforce, including reducing Goddard’s science staff by 42%. Funding bills passed by congressional lawmakers since then have largely excluded the President’s proposed science cuts.

“Getting rid of Goddard removes the entire nation’s capability to build, develop and analyze data from space science satellites,” one Goddard