Armed with new budgetary recommendations from an independent review panel, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is apparently cutting its collection of funded missions.

That means while the space agency's Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Kepler planet-hunting telescope have made the short list of projects to be saved, according to the recently-released "NASA Response to the 2014 Senior Review for Astrophysics Operating Missions," the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, which has made numerous key discoveries since being launched in 2003, is on the chopping block.

The agency also denied a proposed effort, called MaxWISE, to convert data collected by the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) into a format usable for astrophysics, deeming it too expensive.

While Congress continues to eyeball NASA's budget for cost-cutting, about half of the space agency's astrophysics money is earmarked for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is being readied for launch in 2018 and is looked to as a successor for Spitzer as well as Hubble.

The total astrophysics division funding for 2014 was about $1.3 billion, of which $658 million went to Webb.

Spitzer, on the other hand, received $16.5 million this year and was actually scheduled to ask even less from the 2015 budget, but even that relatively small allocation was deemed too costly by NASA officials.

"The Spitzer mission extension for FY 2015 is not approved due to the constrained budget conditions and based on the findings and recommendations of the Senior Review report," said the response document. "The baseline plan to complete Spitzer operations after the end of FY 2014 and complete the closeout of the mission by the end of FY 2015, consistent with the President's FY 2015 budget request, is confirmed."

Along with the Chandra, Hubble and Kepler missions, NASA also approved funding through at least 2016 for its Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and Swift Gamma-Ray Burst.

NASA also decided to continue its participation in the X-Ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) observatory, led by the European Space Agency, and Japan's Suzaku telescope, as well as extending its funding studying data collected by the the Planck microwave-scanning satellite, which was operated by the ESA and deactivated last year.