Tag: NASA Budget

NASA has released their budget proposal for 2014 and, as rumored, it includes funding for the preliminary work to begin a mission to capture an asteroid and bring it to lunar orbit. This is part of President Obama’s $3.77 trillion spending plan for the US budget, and the Fiscal Year 2014 request for NASA totals $17.7 billion. This is $50 million less than the request for 2013, and NASA said they had to make some “tough choices” in putting the proposal together. The new proposal appears to hit the Planetary Science program especially hard (no new missions to the outer planets or moons, it appears), but does include money for Plutonium-238 production and additional funding for asteroid detection. But both those enterprises now rest solely with the Planetary Science budget.

“This budget focuses on an ambitious new mission to expand America’s capabilities in space, steady progress on new space and aeronautic technologies, continued success with commercial space partnerships, and far-reaching science programs to help us understand Earth and the universe in which we live,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden in a statement. “It keeps us competitive, opens the door to new destinations and vastly increases our knowledge. Our drive to make new discoveries and dare new frontiers continues to improve life for people everywhere and raise the bar of human achievement.”

This certainly is not the final numbers of what NASA could receive. For example, for the FY 2013 budget request, NASA asked for $17.711 billion, but with cuts and sequestration, the final number about $16.6 billion.

The proposed budget for 2014 includes funding for NASA’s ongoing human spaceflight program at the ISS as well as the continuation of building the Space Launch System rocket and Orion deep-space capsule. NASA expected un-crewed test flight planned for as early as 2017 and a crewed flight as early as 2021.

It also continues funding for the James Webb Space Telescope (expected to launch in 2018), but cuts the funding for planetary science – one of NASA’s most successful areas – by $272 million. However, it does include $100 million earmarked for the asteroid detection program, which was added to the Planetary Science budget. It also includes funding for another Mars rover very similar to Curiosity, expected to be launched in 2020.

In an interesting move, the budget proposes consolidating the NASA education and outreach programs with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, and the Smithsonian Institution. STEM outreach is another of NASA’s success stories, but it appears some of NASA’s education budget is going to other agencies as part of government-wide STEM restructuring.

This video provides some of the highlights, but below is more information:

Here are the highlights of the 2014 budget proposal for NASA:

• While making tough choices, NASA says this budget reinforces the agency’s current balanced portfolio of aeronautics and space technology development, Earth and space science, the development of rockets and capsules to carry explorers deeper into space, and the use of innovative commercial partnerships for crew and cargo transport to the International Space Station.

• Includes funding needed to develop a Commercial Crew capability, with the intent of supporting a new industry that regains the capability to send American astronauts into space from U.S. soil and ends the need to pay foreign providers to transport American astronauts to the International Space Station.

• Increases investment in space technologies, such as advanced in-space propulsion and space propellant storage, which are necessary to increase America’s capabilities in space, bring the cost of space exploration down, and pave the way for other Federal Government and commercial space activities.

• Fully funds the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, two key elements for pushing the boundaries of human space exploration. This funding level will enable a flight test of Orion in 2014 and the Space Launch System in 2017.

• Keeps development of the James Webb SpaceTelescope, the more powerful successor to the Hubble SpaceTelescope, on track for a 2018 launch.

• Provides over $1.8 billion for Earth Science to revamp the Landsat program, develop climate sensors for the Joint Polar Satellite System, and conduct numerous other satellite and research efforts.

• Begins work on a mission to rendezvous with—and then move—a small asteroid. Astronauts would later visit the asteroid and return samples to Earth, achieving one of the agency’s major goals in a more cost-effective manner.

Of the asteroid mission Bolden said, “This mission represents an unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to achieve the president’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025. We will use existing capabilities such as the Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and laser communications — all critical components of deep space exploration.”

• Continues the agency’s important role in the Nation’s aeronautics research and development portfolio, including a new initiative to make lighter composite materials more easily useable in aviation.

• Funds research on the International Space Station, while identifying efficiencies in operations and space flight support.

• Consolidates $47.5 million of small science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs from across NASA into larger programs at other agencies to achieve the best return on investment, while attaining tangible Government-wide STEM education goals. The Budget preserves $67.5 million for the Space Grant and Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment programs at NASA, as well as key minority-serving education programs, and refocuses an additional $26.8 million from other NASA education and outreach programs to facilitate the wider application of its best education assets in close coordination with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Read the full 2014 Budget Proposal here,
, and find additional info and links here.

It seems the US in not going to avoid the sequester — the $85 billion worth of federal spending cuts due to kick in March 1, 2013. There will be across the board cuts to government agencies, applying equally to defense and non-defense spending, and will affect services from meat inspections to air traffic control. In some cases, federal workers will be furloughed or could stand to lose as much as 20 percent of their pay. One question no one can answer is how long it will take for Congress and the Obama administration to come to an agreement on a package that would reduce the deficit.

But in the near term, how will it affect NASA?

“Sequestration would significantly set back the ambitious space exploration plan the President and Congress have asked NASA to carry out,” NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said in a message to NASA employees this week. “These damaging cuts would slash roughly 5 percent from the agency’s current annual budget during the remaining seven months of the 2013 fiscal year, a loss of about $726 million from the President’s budget request. This could further delay the restarting of human space launches from U.S. soil, push back our next generation space vehicles, and hold up development of new space technologies.

In hard numbers, NASA’s overall budget would drop to $16.9 billion, down from the $17.8 billion Congress approved last year.

NASA civil servants are safe from furloughs, but NASA contractors will see cuts in their contracts.

In a press conference on Feb. 28, preceding the scheduled March 1 launch of the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the ISS, NASA’s Space Station Manager Mike Suffredini said the ISS would not be impacted very much. With humans on board the ISS, there can be no cuts in operations that would endanger the crew. While Sufferdini didn’t say so, if the cuts continue long-term to NASA, there likely would be an impact to science being done, and perhaps eventually crew size.

Spending on the commercial crew program might take one of the biggest hits, and would be reduced to $388 million, which is $18 million less than it is currently spending and $441.6 million less than the agency had been planning to spend in 2013. Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and SpaceX are all under contract to meet performance milestones to deliver cargo and ultimately crew (by 2017) to the International Space Station.

In a separate letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, (D-MD) Bolden said NASA’s commercial crew partners would be affected by this summer, as NASA would no longer be able to fund upcoming events such as a test of Boeing’s CST-100 orbital maneuvering and attitude control engine in July, a September review of an in-flight abort test SpaceX plans to conduct in April 2014, and an October integrated system and safety analysis review of Sierra Nevada’s DreamChaser space plane.

Also at the SpaceX press conference on Feb. 28, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the specifics of how the sequestration will affect her company is not yet known, but it will likely impact some of their milestones if the budget issues aren’t resolved soon.

Howard Bloom, founder of the Space Development Steering Committee, said these cuts to commercial crew would be a disaster, delaying when US astronauts could launch on US rockets, and would just “shovel” money to Russia.

“This nip and tuck may result in a period of an additional one to two years in which America cannot get astronauts to the International Space Station on our own launch vehicles,” he said in a statement sent to Universe Today. “But we are committed to manning the Space Station. How will we do it? Using Russian Soyuz capsules. At a price of $63 million paid to the Russians for each American passenger– a total of $350-400 million per year.”

Even worse, Bloom said, sequestration could eliminate one of more of the companies working on American launch vehicles, and the result would be “less competition and a potentially higher cost per launch once a new vehicle comes into service.”

Science and research will also be affected, with reductions of $51.1 million below the FY 2013 budget request for astrophysics and science, meaning funding for new missions such as Explorer and Earth Venture Class will be cut, decreasing mission selections by 10 to 15 percent, resulting in lower funding levels for new activities and causing some launch delays. There will also be a reduction in the number of science flight opportunities such as those for college and high school students, and the elimination of Centennial Challenges funding to for any new prizes.

NASA’s Space Technology Program would be cut by $24 million to $550 million instead of $699 million, and any updates or construction at NASA facilities would be centers would be canceled. This may impact updates at Kennedy Space Center for infrastructure needed for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and other programs.

As far as other science programs in the US there are reports that at least 1,000 National Science Foundation grants will be cut, and the National Institute of Health will lose $3.1 billion.

“We will continue to keep you informed as we learn more about issues surrounding the potential sequestration,” Bolden said in his email to NASA employees. Dr. Elizabeth Robinson, Agency Chief Financial Officer, and her staff in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer here at NASA HQ will be following up with the Officials in Charge regarding our plans for implementing sequestration and how those plans will affect NASA’s day-to-day operations. Please feel free to contact her or her staff with questions or concerns.”

Sources: NBC, AeroNews, Space Industry News.

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As expected, NASA’s 2013 budget request calls for an overall decrease in funding, with especially tough cuts to planetary science and education. The budget proposal of $17.7 billion is a decrease of 0.3% or $59 million from the 2012 budget and puts NASA at its lowest level of funding in four years. President Obama’s budget request for NASA includes a flat budget through 2017, with no out-year growth even for inflation.

Using the phrase “very difficult fiscal times” countless times, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden tried to put an upbeat spin on the bad news during a press conference on the budget on February 13.

“We are having to make tough decisions because these are very difficult fiscal times,” he said. “However this is a stable budget that allows us to support a diverse portfolio and continues the work we started last year.”

While the proposal includes continued funding for the agency’s human space programs —including $4 billion for space operations and $4 billion for human activities for the International Space Station, nearly $3 billion for the heavy-lift Space Launch System and Orion MPCV, along with $830 million for the commercial crew and cargo — planetary science took a huge hit, especially the Mars science program, considered by many to be the “crown jewel” of NASA’s planetary program.

Mars exploration would be cut by a whopping 38.5 percent, going from $587 million this year to $361 million in 2013. As predicted NASA has pulled out of the Exo-Mars collaboration with the European Space Agency, for dual Mars missions in 2016 and 2018, with no future flagship missions even in the offing, beyond the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover, now on its way to Mars.

“Flagship missions are essential for the nation,” said Bolden when asked about what could be expected for future missions, “but we just could not afford to do another one right now given the budget an these difficult fiscal times.”

The Science Mission Directorate budget, which includes planetary exploration, astronomy and Earth environment monitoring, would receive $4.911 billion in 2013 instead of the $5.07 billion it received in 2012.

The NASA education budget was cut $36 million, down from $136 million in 2012 to $100 million in 2013.

The only bright spot for potential future planetary missions is that a small amount of funding was included in the 2013 budget to look into the re-start of making Plutonium-238, the power source for outer-planet missions. However, the cut to exploration missions means there is no funding for any new missions to potentially use the power source, such as a spacecraft to study the moons of Jupiter or a Uranus orbiter, two projects that were a high priority in the Decadal Survey released by the science community in 2011. The reduction might also affect ongoing missions such as the remaining Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. Those missions will be reviewed by NASA later this year.

This cut to planetary science has already been decried by many including the Planetary Society, which said the new proposal pushes planetary science “to the brink.”

“The priorities reflected in this budget would take us down the wrong path,” said Bill Nye, CEO of the Planetary Society. “Science is the part of NASA that’s actually conducting interesting and scientifically important missions. Spacecraft sent to Mars, Saturn, Mercury, the Moon, comets, and asteroids have been making incredible discoveries, with more to come from recent launches to Jupiter, the Moon, and Mars. The country needs more of these robotic space exploration missions, not less.”

The James Webb telescope, notorious for its cost overruns and delays, would get $627.6 million for 2013, up from $518.6 million in 2012 and $476.8 million in 2011. Many see JWST as responsible for draining money away from planetary science. JWST won’t launch until 2018 at the earliest.

Bolden said since NASA “replanned” JWST, they receive an accounting each month and so far the mission has been on-budget and on-time as far as meeting goals. “Through diligence and really paying attention to the budget and timeline, I think we can get this mission done,” Bolden said.

Two other bright spots in the budget was that funding for Earth observation satellites would be the same as 2012, at about $1.8 billion and the Space Technology program would get $699 million, up from the $569 million Congress approved for 2012.

As far as the human side, most officials were pleased with the numbers. The commercial Space Federation put out a statement saying that the “Commercial Crew program will enable American providers to free us from dependence on the Russian Soyuz for access to the International Space Station, a facility that American taxpayers have invested nearly $100 billion to build. NASA currently pays Russia more than $60 million per seat to access the Space Station, a price that is expected to rise above $70 million in the next few years.”

Executive Director Alex Saltman added, “With the Shuttle fleet retiring last year, Americans look forward to the day when we return our astronauts to space on American rockets. We are pleased that the Administration is requesting the funding necessary to make that happen. Now it’s Congress’s job to help put America back in space.”

As bad as the budget seems, according to some sources, things could have been much worse. The White House Office of Management and Budget had earlier asked NASA to submitted budget proposals at a 5, 10 or 15 percent cut. They may have been lucky to get only a .3% cut.

Here’s NASA’s upbeat video about the new budget:

For more information:
NASAs 2013 Budget webpage
NASA 2013 Budget Request Estimates(pdf)
2013 Budget Presentation (pdf)