[meteorite-list] Proposed NASA Budget Keeps Funding Flat in 2015

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1403/04nasabudget/

Proposed NASA budget keeps funding flat in 2015
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
March 4, 2014

The White House's 2015 budget request for NASA submitted to Congress on 
Tuesday would keep the agency's human spaceflight programs, the James 
Webb Space Telescope and Mars exploration on track while investing in 
future missions to Jupiter's moon Europa and a flagship infrared space 
telescope.

President Barack Obama's budget calls for NASA to get $17.46 billion in 
fiscal year 2015, which begins Oct. 1. That is 1 percent less than the 
space agency received this year in a budget passed by Congress and signed 
the president last month.

The budget request is subject to changes and approval by Congress.

The budget cuts funding for the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared 
Astronomy, an airborne platform aboard a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet 
jointly funded by NASA and DLR, the German space agency. Unless partners 
are able to support the U.S. portion of SOFIA's operating costs, the aircraft 
will be grounded in 2015, according to NASA.

"Savings from SOFIA can have a larger impact supporting other science 
missions," officials wrote in a fact sheet accompanying the Obama administration's 
budget release.

The spending plan supports the Obama administration's decision to extend 
U.S. operations of the International Space Station to 2024 with about 
$3 billion, funds NASA's Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule with 
nearly $2.8 billion, and requests $848 million for development of commercial 
spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and end 
U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles.

NASA's science programs would get approximately $5 billion, with Earth 
science the leading discipline in the agency's research portfolio at a 
budget line of nearly $1.8 billion, supporting the launch of the Soil 
Moisture Active Passive, or SMAP, mission later this year and continuing 
development of NASA satellites and instruments to study polar ice, Earth's 
gravity field, winds, ocean topography and air quality.

The planetary science division's budget request is set at about $1.3 billion, 
covering NASA's operating missions on Mars and work on the InSight Mars 
lander set for launch in 2016 and a rover based on the Curiosity mission 
planned for liftoff in 2020.

The planetary budget includes $15 million to plan for a mission to fly 
by Jupiter's moon Europa. The 2014 budget enacted last month provided 
$80 million to continue studies and formulation of the proposed Europa 
probe.

Astrophysics would receive $607 million in 2015 under President Obama's 
plan, keeping the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory 
and other missions online while paying for early design work on the Wide-Field 
Infrared Space Telescope, or WFIRST, including technology development 
for detectors and a coronagraph instrument, according to NASA.

WFIRST would use one of two 2.4-meter (7.9-foot) telescopes given to NASA 
by the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government's spy satellite 
agency.

The astrophysics budget significantly reduces funding for the SOFIA airborne 
observatory.

The James Webb Space Telescope is kept on schedule for launch in October 
2018 with $645 million in fiscal 2015.

Solar research stands to receive $669 million next year, supporting launch 
of the four-satellite Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission and development 
of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft with the European Space Agency and the 
Solar Probe Plus mission planned for launch later this decade.

The budget allots $706 million space technology initiatives, including 
$133 million for solar-electric propulsion and other technologies for 
NASA's proposed mission to redirect an asteroid to the vicinity of the 
moon for human visits by 2025.

NASA's aeronautics directorate is set to receive $551 million, and education 
programs would get $89 million under the White House request.