Open this photo in gallery: The Canadarm 2 reaches out to capture the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft and prepare it to be pulled into its port on the International Space Station on April 17, 2015.The Canadian Press Shares in Brampton, Ont.-based space technology company MDA Space Ltd. closed down 14 per cent Friday after the White House released a proposed 2026 budget that slashes US$6-billion for space programs. The budget reduces NASA’s funding by a quarter and would cut several rocket programs in favour of “more cost-effective, next-generation commercial systems,” the space agency said in a statement Friday. The budget also calls for a halt of Gateway, a proposed lunar space station that could serve as a launch point for Mars exploration, a project of which Canada is a partner. In 2024, MDA was awarded a $1-billion contract to build a robotic arm known as the Canadarm3. The contract runs through 2030. In a news release Friday afternoon, the company said that the Canadarm3 program associated with the Gateway project is under a contract with the Canadian Space Agency, not with NASA, and therefore remains unchanged. “The Canadarm3 contract serves multiple purposes including both space agency and commercial opportunities. There has been no change to any MDA Space contract as a result of these U.S. budget deliberations,” the company said. The release said MDA’s management would provide an update on the company‘s business outlook as part of its next regular earnings release, scheduled for May 8. In a note to investors Friday evening, Bank of Montreal analyst Thanos Moschopoulos said he views the cancellation of the Canadarm program as “unlikely.” “The proposed White House budget references a priority on returning to the moon ‘before China’ and putting a man on Mars. Canadarm3 might well be applicable in supporting these objectives,” he said. While the Trump administration’s budget proposal and the statement released by NASA did not mention specific changes to commercial partnerships, shares in Lockheed Martin Corp., another contractor for the agency, also fell Friday. The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization temporarily halted trading of the MDA’s stock after the steep slide at about 2:30 EST to “ensure a fair and orderly market.” When CIRO surveillance staff believe information released while markets are open is material enough to affect a company’s stock price significantly, they sometimes issue a temporary trading halt to allow the market to absorb the information properly. MDA has been one of the top-performing stocks among the 20 technology companies that went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange during an unprecedented boom in initial public offerings during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the tech boom transformed into a rout starting in late 2021 as surging inflation and the threat of interest rate hikes, later realized, hit the sector. Most of the 20 companies have since left the public markets, and most at below their issue price. MDA is one of the few that are still publicly traded and worth more than its issue price, even following Friday’s drop, after a series of contract wins and improved financial results. MDA’s roots date back to the late 1960s, when it was known as MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Inc. Before the 2021 IPO, it had been a public company that changed its name to Maxar Technologies Inc. after combining with a Colorado-based company. A Canadian investor group that included John Risley, Jim Balsillie and Senvest Capital agreed to buy the Canadian unit out of Maxar in late 2019 for $1-billion. They then took the business public again a little more than two years later to capitalize on renewed interest in its prospects in the burgeoning private space market and interest in technology companies in general.