WASHINGTON — House appropriators would fully fund NASA’s Mars Sample Return program despite its ongoing problems but halt the agency’s plans to cooperate with a European Mars mission.
House appropriators released this week the report accompanying the commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill for fiscal 12 months 2024. That bill, which incorporates $25.366 billion for NASA, had been in limbo for greater than three months, after an appropriations subcommittee marked up the bill in mid-July. The complete appropriations committee didn’t take up the bill on the time nor public the report related to it, which provides more details on spending levels and policy direction.
The delayed publication of the report comes as the complete House prepared to take up the bill without an appropriations committee markup, likely in mid-November. The House Rules Committee is soliciting amendments for the bill now for consideration a while through the week of Nov. 13.
The most important difference between the House and Senate bills involves Mars Sample Return (MSR). The Senate bill provided only $300 million for this system, lower than a 3rd of NASA’s $949.3 million request, and directed NASA to offer a funding profile for MSR that costs not more than $5.3 billion or provide “options to de-scope or rework MSR or face mission cancellation.”
The House report, though, would fully fund MSR at $949.3 million, and instructs NASA to request the funding mandatory in 2025 to make sure the MSR sample retrieval lander and Earth return orbiter missions launch by 2030.
The report, though, refers back to the “pending Independent Review Board’s results.” That board accomplished its work in September, concluding there was a “near zero probability” that MSR could stay on cost and schedule. It also concluded that the general MSR program would cost between $8 billion and $11 billion, well above the $5.3 billion threshold mentioned within the Senate report.
The funding for MSR within the House bill has ripple effects for other NASA programs. The House bill provides $7.38 billion for NASA science programs, barely greater than the $7.341 billion within the Senate bill. Nevertheless, the House bill reduces funding for Earth science, astrophysics, heliophysics and biological and physical sciences in comparison with the Senate bill, which had already been cut most often from the agency’s request.
The House report provides little direction on Earth science, astrophysics or heliophysics programs. Nevertheless, the proposed cut was one reason Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said Oct. 13 he was considering cuts in operating budgets for the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.
Curiously, while the House bill fully funds MSR, it will block a much smaller expenditure on one other Mars program. “The advice doesn’t support the requested funding for the Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover,” the report states, a reference to proposed NASA support for that European Space Agency mission that ESA wanted terminating cooperation with Russia last 12 months.
That support continues to be being negotiated but would likely include thrusters for a brand new landing platform for the rover, radioisotope heating units and a launch. NASA’s 2024 budget proposal didn’t discover specific funding for that cooperation but as an alternative included it as a part of a “Mars Future Missions” program line that also includes planning for a receiving facility for the samples brought back from the MSR line of missions. NASA requested $49.9 million for Mars Future Missions in its budget proposal.
For that receiving facility, the House report offered specific language, directing NASA “to prioritize proximity to the present curator for all NASA-held extraterrestrial samples” by placing the brand new facility inside 30 miles (50 kilometers) of that current facility, which is positioned on the Johnson Space Center. NASA has yet to pick out a possible location for that receiving facility, but noted within the budget proposal that it should have a rating of Biosafety Level 4 and might be a part of an existing government facility.
The House bill also reduces funding for space technology and space operations, but by smaller amounts than the Senate bill. The report section on space operations doesn’t mention funding levels for the business low Earth orbit development, or CLD, program, which the Senate bill fully funds. It does, though, provide the $180 million NASA requested for an International Space Station deorbit vehicle.
The House bill fully funds NASA’s exploration account, which incorporates the Space Launch System, Orion, ground systems, and other capabilities just like the Human Landing System and spacesuits.