NASA's Planetary Science Budget Reportedly to be Hit -- Again

The sequester will hit NASA again, with large reported cuts to the Planetary Science program.  NASA's managers have stated for several months that further cuts to the planetary program were likely.  The sequester requires automatic cuts to most federal budgets of approximately 5%.  Congress has given the administration the freedom to apply the cuts disproportionately to lower priority programs within agencies to protect higher priority programs.  For NASA, the planetary program is lower priority, and cuts as large as 15% reportedly are being proposed.  

Mark Sykes, editor of the Planetary Exploration Newsletter, has received advanced information (leaks) on the proposed cuts to the budget for the remainder of fiscal year 2013 (which ends in October).  In recent years, Congress has rarely completed new budgets on time. Agencies have operated under continuing resolutions for months into the following fiscal year, so these budget levels, if they stand, could continue well into FY14.

The administration is expected to release its proposed sequester-adjusted budget for NASA later this month.  It has to notify Congress of the proposed cuts, but it's not clear to me whether Congress can object or if it would formally do so.  (Several representatives and senators have issued statements warning the administration not to disproportionately cut the Planetary Science program, but this is not formal Congressional action.)  The cuts reduce planetary spending substantially below to the recently passed NASA planetary budget for FY13 that was signed into law by President Obama.

The only good news in the budget changes is that $67M would be spent to further studies on a mission to Europa.  However, the President's proposed budget for FY14 has no money for this program, so this could be a one year project.  (As I understand the rules of the sequester, whole programs in enacted budgets cannot be eliminated, so the administration may not have had the freedom to cut the Europa mission studies.)

To pay for the Europa studies, the sequester-adjusted budget would cut the Discovery program (missions <$500M) by 33% and the New Frontiers program (missions ~$1B) by 7%.  The Discovery program cuts would, I think, delay the start of the competition for the next mission from early next year to sometime in the future.  (I don't know if the cuts are large enough to impact to delay the current Discovery mission in development -- the Mars InSight geophysical station -- or not.  Sykes does not mention any slip.)  The research and analysis budget that supports the scientific community that analyzes planetary data would be cut by 9% and could cause scientists without funding to leave the field.  (All cut percentages are relative to the current approved Planetary Science budget for FY13 that was passed by Congress.)


Cuts to programs could have potentially larger impacts than the simple percentages imply because they must be applied in the few months remaining in this fiscal year.


You can read the full details of the proposed cuts at the Planetary Exploration Newsletter site.  (I read this newsletter regularly and recommend it to you.)

ISIS: Blasting a Crater on Asteroid Bennu

NASA’s OSIRIS- REx asteroid mission may get much more exciting thanks to an innovative proposal from a group led by Steve Chesley at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  The main goal of the OSIRIS-REx mission will be to gather and return to Earth up to two kilograms of material from the surface of the primitive asteroid Bennu (previously known as 1999 RQ36).  Prior to collecting the sample, the spacecraft will also carry out extensive imaging and spectral analysis of the surface and by mapping the gravity field investigate the interior structure.  (See here and here for my posts on the OSIRIS-REx mission.)

The proposed ISIS spacecraft nearing its impact with the asteroid Bennu.  Credit Steve Chesley.

Chesley proposes to send a second spacecraft, named ISIS, to Bennu that would perform a high speed crash on the surface.  You may remember that the Deep Impact spacecraft similarly delivered an impact projectile to comet Tempel  1.  That mission was partially skunked when the dust cloud raised by the collision prevented the main spacecraft from imaging the resulting crater, whose size and shape would have provided important clues about the structure of comets.  (A second spacecraft later imaged the crater.)

Under Chesley’s plan, the impact would occur while the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft lingers (at a safe distance) near Bennu following its initial study and the collection of the samples.  At the time of the impact, the OSIRIS-REx cameras would watch the cloud of ejected material for clues to the composition and size of the blocks of material making up the surface.  Once the ejecta had safely dissipated, OSIRIS-REx would move in for a close look at the ISIS impact crater to examine the composition of Bennu a few meters below the surface.  The spacecraft would also remap the asteroid surface to see what changes occurred as the result of the seismic shock created by the impact, which will help us understand the role impacts have in shaping the surface of small bodies.  (There is no plan to risk the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft by having it sample within the newly created crater.)

Image of the Deep Impact strike on comet Tempel 1.  Credit NASA/JPL.

While the impact would further our scientific exploration of asteroids, the ISIS mission also would contribute to other goals.  If astronomers discover an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, one idea would be to send an spacecraft to change the asteroid’s trajectory through a high speed impact.  Small asteroids like Bennu are believed to be rubble piles, and it’s difficult to model how an impact would affect an asteroid’s trajectory.  The OSIRIS-REx mission team would measure Bennu’s trajectory before and after the impact to determine the resulting miniscule change in Bennu’s orbit about the sun.  This would help us better understand whether future impactors could divert asteroids from collision courses with the Earth.  (Bennu is among the known asteroids with the largest (but still small) probability of hitting the Earth in the future.)

NASA also has goals to send humans to explore small near Earth asteroids like Bennu.  Before astronauts arrive, the space agency would like to better understand these bodies’ surface mechanical properties, their local and global stability, and the environment of small particles likely to surround them.  The ISIS impact experiment would further our understanding in all three areas.

For those who don’t remember their ancient Egyptian mythology, Osiris was a god ruler of Egypt.  Following his murder and dismemberment, his wife and queen Isis gathered together his scattered body parts and resurrected him.  While there’s no murder in this story, the proposed ISIS mission would be enabled by taking advantage of various existing components. 

First, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will be at Bennu and will have several months available in its schedule to watch the impact and study the aftermath.  The 2016 InSight Mars mission provides an option to launch ISIS at negligible additional cost on an orbit would take it twice past Mars and then to Bennu.  The ISIS spacecraft itself would be built around an adapter ring designed to mate a main spacecraft to its launch vehicle and also provide attach points for small secondary spacecraft.  The components needed to turn the adapter ring into a spacecraft – electronics, solar panels, propulsion, and a camera that would be used to track Bennu – would take the place of the secondary spacecraft.    The final collision would be enabled by a JPL-developed AutoNav system, has been used for five previous NASA comet encounters, that would image Bennu in the final hours and steer the spacecraft to an impact.

Current concept for the ISIS spacecraft.  The ESPA ring is the adapter between the launch vehicle and the InSight Mars lander  Ballast can be added to maximize the impact weight of the ISIS spacecraft within the overall launch weight constraints for the InSight and ISIS missions.  Credit Steve Chesley.

The InSight Mars lander and ISIS asteroid impact spacecraft stack atop the launch vehicle.  Credit Steve Chesley.

The goal of the mission would be to maximize the wallop of the impact by maximizing the impact velocity and the mass of the spacecraft.  The maximum velocity of the collision would be determined by the constraints of terminal approaches in which the AutoNav system can ensure an impact.  The design team has approximately 1000 kg of spare launch mass on the InSight mission to use in designing the ISIS spacecraft, with a good portion of that needed for propellant for the trajectory maneuvers.  The current nominal mission design would impact Bennu at 13.4 kilometers a second (48,000 kilometers or 30,000 miles per hour) with a dry spacecraft mass of around 420 kg.  Chesley’s team estimates the energy of the impact would be equivalent to approximately nine tons of TNT, enough to create a crater tens of meters across.

The ISIS mission would be a planetary exploration bargain.  While Chesley’s team is continuing to refine the mission design, current cost estimates are somewhat above $100M.  NASA’s cheapest class of planetary missions from its Discovery program cost approximately $450M not including the launch vehicle.  Time, though, is short to develop a spacecraft in time for launch in 2016, and NASA’s budgets are tight.  At the moment, NASA is funding further design pending a decision on whether it can fund the ISIS mission this coming fall. 

If the ISIS mission gets its go ahead, the timeline would play out as follows:

2016    

  March: ISIS and InSight launch

  July: ISIS 1^st Mars flyby

  September: OSIRS-REx launch

2018     

  October: OSIRIS-REx reaches Bennu

2019     

  January: ISIS 2^nd Mars flyby

2020     

  January: OSIRIS-REx completes planned Bennu observations and sampling

2021 -    

  February: ISIS impacts Bennu

  May: OSIRIS-REx completes post impact observations

  June: OSIRIS-REx departs for Earth

2023     

  Bennu samples returned to Earth

I’m impressed the cleverness behind the acronyms for the missions involved.  The OSIRIS-REx team began the Egyptian theme with a mission acronym that spells the name of an Egyptian diety: Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith EXplorer.  The asteroid’s new name, Bennu, comes from an Egyptian god usually depicted as a heron, which OSIRIS-REx will resemble as it extends its sampling probe to the asteroid’s surface.  That resemblance was noticed by nine-year-old Michael Puzio, who won a contest to name the asteroid. Chesley proposes to continue the Egyptian them with ISIS:  Impactor for Surface and Interior Science.  I think a safe prediction is that the features identified on Bennu will also follow an Egyptian theme.

You can read a presentation by Chesley on the ISIS mission here.  Leonard David at Space.com also wrote an article about this mission.

Europa Clipper Update

Planetary geologist Philip Horzempa returns with a new post giving an update on the proposed Europa Clipper mission.  

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President Obama’s recently released FY2014 budget proposal, unfortunately, contains no funding for a mission to Europa.  In fact, the budget document states that NASA not only is not funding such a mission, but that it cannot fund it.  Several sources of budget constraints appear to be stalling any new start.  In addition to the sequester, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate has the ongoing money drain of the Jams Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  That funding burden will not lessen until about 2017 – 2018.  One could imagine that NASA may see a funding wedge appear at about that time, with a new start for a Europa mission possible in FY 2015 or 2016.  The early years of a space project require minimal funding, allowing a program to begin Phase A and Phase B (design and definition) a few years before the fiscal “heavy-lifting” of Phases C and D (detailed design, construction and testing) .In the meantime, the Europa team has continued to refine the design of what they refer to as the Europa Clipper (see Van’s post of September 24, 2012).  Whenever they are given the “go-ahead” from the White House, they will have a mission ready to proceed to implementation. 

The Europa science community believe they have developed a cost-effective, yet scientifically compelling, mission to the ice-covered Galilean satellite.  After considering an orbiter, the consensus is that a multi-flyby spacecraft would return more science for the same cost ceiling.  The Europa Clipper embodies the modified FBC (faster, better, cheaper) approach.  It is seeking to capture as much of the Jupiter Europa Orbiter (JEO) flagship science as possible using a smart, elegant, lower-cost design.  This past January, the Europa team presented the results of their latest “scrub” of the Clipper mission.  This Europa Clipper design refinement can be seen here.

The plan is to launch in 2021, followed by one Venus and two Earth gravity assists.  Six years after launch, with the gravity assist of a Ganymede flyby, the Clipper will enter orbit around Jupiter.  Over the next 2.5 years, it will perform 32 flybys during its prime mission, with closest approach altitudes of 25 - 100 kilometers (actually 34 total flybys will occur, but only 32 are optimal for science).  In order to reduce planning costs, the timeline of each flyby will be essentially identical. (Figure 1) However, the trajectory of each flyby will bring it over a different sector of Europa.  This will provide global medium-resolution coverage from the Topographic Imager. 

Figure 1.  Flyby timeline.  Click on image for a larger version.

It was felt that the Europa Clipper mission should also provide data that would feed-forward to a future soft lander.  This concept of reconnaissance has seen a rebirth at NASA, with ongoing orbital missions at the Moon and Mars.  The addition of a Reconnaissance Camera was deemed to be essential for providing images for landing site surveys ( lander-scale characterization of the surface is needed).  The Recon camera (a push-broom design) will produce 20 x n km images at resolutions of as fine as 0.5 meters.  The limitation on the number of such high-resolution images comes from the large amount of data in each photo.  In turn, the swath length will be determined by the amount of down-link time available.  The Recon camera will utilize an innovative flip-mirror to enable stereo imaging of a scene in a single pass.  It will be able to obtain views 15 degrees from nadir (Figure 2)  It is believed that about 15 candidate landing sites will need to be surveyed in order to be able to down-select to 2, a primary and a backup.  That selection will be done by some future team of Europa Lander scientists and engineers.

Figure 2. High resolution camera flip mirror to allow stereo imaging.

A separate, smaller, and gimbaled gravity science antenna will allow the collection of gravity data during flybys. (Figure 3).  Because the cameras and other remote sensing instruments are mounted to the spacecraft body, the main antenna cannot be pointed to Earth during flybys to allow tracking for gravity measurements.  The separate antenna will be kept pointed at Earth during flybys to permit the important gravity measurements that will reveal much of the internal structure of Europa.

Figure 3. Gravity science antenna.

During this latest iteration, the Europa team was allowed to raise the cost cap from $1.7 billion to a total of $2.0 billion.  (This is still less than half the estimated cost of the previously proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter.)  This increase allowed the addition of a Magnetometer and Langmuir Probes to the payload suite.  Rounding out the instrument complement are an Ice-Penetrating Radar, a Thermal Imager, a Neutral-Mass Spectrometer and a Short-Wave Infra-Red Spectrometer.  Figure 4 shows some of the payload complement and where they will sit on the spacecraft. 

Figure 4.  Europa Clipper instruments.

The highly-capable instrument suite is one reason that the Europa Clipper would cost more than missions such as JUICE or the proposed Io Observer.  The scope and resilience of the Clipper mission means that it must survive an intense radiation exposure over its 2.5-year mission.  This data-intensive mission must also use a reliable, high-energy power source. 

The Europa Clipper spacecraft benefits from the heritage of the Galileo and Juno Jupiter Orbiters in its approach to radiation protection.The Clipper will utilize 150 kg. of dedicated radiation shielding which is one-half of that planned for the earlier JEO (Jupiter Europa Orbiter)  proposal.  The Clipper will use a scheme of nested radiation protection for its electronics (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Nested radiation protection for the spacecraft's electronics.

For example, the Spacecraft structure and propulsion system will provide a measure of radiation protection, essentially for free.  With intelligent placement, the project will utilize much less expensive 100 and 300 kilo-rad hard parts.  Individual payload electronics have their own shielding, while the use of a central electronics vault is also part of the protection plan.  As a result of this approach, the Clipper team will not need to fund an expensive development effort to build mega-rad hard avionics.

The Europa Clipper mission will be data-intensive.  In order to downlink this data efficiently and cheaply, the Clipper will use mass-memory-storage. The spacecraft will leisurely downlink the data from each close encounter with Europa during the two weeks between flybys.  This will avoid the more costly, and power-hungry, approach of near-real-time broadcast during flyby.

Over the course of its prime mission, the Clipper will return a Terabit of data, including high-resolution images, radar soundings, magnetic field measurements, compostion spectra, and gravity science.  In order to return all of this date, a robust energy source is required.  There are three energy supply options, two of which are thermal-electric and one solar.

Solar panels would be the lowest cost, highest mass option.  However, they pose the risk of not providing enough power over the lifetime of the mission.  The Europa Clipper's orbit has a low inclination causing it to pass through the most intense radiation environment in the solar system.This would cause aggressive degradation of solar cells, such that their power output would be increasingly compromised as the mission progressed.  The Juno orbiter is able to use solar power because its high-inclination polar trajectory enables it to avoid most of the high radiation zones that are concentrated over Jupiter's equator.  This is true even though it flies much closer to the gas giant than the Clipper ever will.  ESA’s JUICE spacecraft is able to use solar energy mainly because it only flies near Europa twice during its mission. 

The proposed Io Observer would also use solar panels.  It avoids high doses of radiation by orbiting Jupiter in an inclined orbit.  Europa Clipper is unable to utilize such a high-inclination orbit because that would result in flyby velocities too great to allow its Infra-Red and Ice-Penetrating Radar to gather useful data. 

This leaves the two thermal-electric options.  These power systems utilize the heat generated by the decay of Plutonium-238 to drive thermal-electric power conversion units.  One of these, the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) design is actually still in development, although at a high level of maturity.  NASA chose not to pursue a Discovery mission that would have utilized one of these units.  In light of that decision, the agency will still take the two ASRG development units to flight status this year.  They will then be placed in storage, awaiting a mission.  If this power source is chosen, then the Clipper would utilize four ASRG units. 

However, before the ASRG design would be approved for the Europa Clipper,  more work would need to be done.  The radiation hardness of the Generation-1 ASRG units is not sufficient for the Europa mission and there are also lifetime demonstration issues.

The other thermal-electric option is the Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermal-electric Generator design (MMRTG). This system is the 1^st new radioisotope power system developed in over 20 years.It has advanced to actual flight status, with the first MMRTG flight unit, F-1, now sitting on the surface of Mars, powering the MSL rover.  Its backup, F-2, is in bonded storage at the Rocketdyne plant in Canoga Park.  It has been operated and has shown good performance.  It is now slated to fly onboard the 2020 Mars Rover, i.e., MSL-2. 

The next unit, F-3, is the flight spare for Mars 2020.It is now under construction, with completion set for this month.  If not needed for the Mars 2020 rover, then F-3 would be available for a mission to Europa.In addition to F-3, three more MMRTG units would be needed for the Clipper.  There are plans for infusing new technologies in the next generation of MMRTG.These would produce 150, or even 180 watts, as compared to 120 watts for the 1^st generation. 

There are a number of issues that need to be considered if one of the thermal-electric options is chosen.  ASRG development seems to have begun during the short-lived Prometheus program.  An engineering unit at NASA Glenn has accumulated over 10,000 hours (14 months) of operation so far.  The maturity level for the ASRG units is high, but they are more expensive than an MMRTG and have yet to fly in space.  On the other hand, their power conversion efficiency of 30% means that they are more frugal than MMRTG units (9% efficiency) with the Plutonium supply. 

The MMRTG design has several advantages over the ASRG.  First, as noted, an MMRTG is now in space.  The design has high reliability and low cost.  In addition, the ASRG utilizes kinetic energy as one stage in it power conversion.  It is still to be determined whether the resulting vibrations would make it incompatible with a Europa mission.  If so, then the vibration-free MMRTG would be at an advantage.  In addition, the re-start of Plutonium production in the U.S. may make the use of an MMRTG for Europa more plausible.  One factor that had favored the use of ASRG units for space missions was the shrinking inventory of Pu-238 in this country.  However, if the goal of producing 1.5 – 2.0 kg of Pu-238 per year is met, then that concern will be eased.America now has about 10 kg of older, aging Pu-238.  The new Pu-238 can be blended with the old material producing the desired power density.

Over the next 18 months the Europa project team will be conducting a comprehensive trade study, comparing all viable energy options.  The variables to be considered include cost, risk, robustness, design compatibility, and implementation feasibility.  This effort will go a long way towards choosing the most appropriate system for the Clipper. 

The Clipper team is very interested in the idea of hosting several nanosats that would be deployed in the vicinity of Europa.  This is contingent upon the use of the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lifter.  Only that rocket would provide the needed mass margin required if the Clipper is to carry small satellite payload elements.  However, if pursued, the working concept for the Clipper could provide the necessary housekeeping, deployment and radio-relay capabilities.  In addition, thought is being given to utilizing an intermediate orbit insertion module that would allow several nanosats to enter orbit around Europa. 

If these nanosats can be accommodated, then the Europa team would like to cooperate with the growing American small-sat community.  There is a desire to get feedback from engineers and scientists on the best way to use these probes.  There are a variety of options that could use a single smallsat, or a network, with instruments such as magnetometers or cameras.  These probes could be orbiters, “Ranger-style” crash landers, or even hard landers that might operate for a short time after impact.  Resource and cost constraints will be tight, but if these mini-probes  could fit, then the Europa team is interested. 

Still to be decided this year is how, or if, a total of $75 million of new funding is to be spent.  In this year’s budget, Congress specifically earmarked that sum for development of a Europa mission.  There have been rumors that NASA’s operating plan for this year’s budget, due to be delivered to Congress soon, will seek to spend that money on other agency projects.  In response to such concerns, Senators Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer joined with  Congressmen Adam Schiff and John Culberson in sending a letter to NASA.  They point out to NASA that funding levels for its science programs “will remain consistent with the structure directed by Congress.”  Essentially, they are reminding the agency that the Constitution gives the power to say how the nation’s money is spent to the Congress.  The Executive branch has limited leeway in how it interprets Congress’ appropriations legislation.

How this will turn out is difficult to gauge.  This is not the first time such a struggle has occurred.  For years, the Congress earmarked funds for development of a Solar Probe mission.  Eventually, NASA got the message and awarded a new start for the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft.  About 10 years ago, when NASA was trying to eliminate funding for the New Horizons Pluto probe, Congress specifically earmarked funding for that mission, enabling it to proceed.More recently, after the Obama Administration canceled the Ares 5 heavy lift rocket in its FY 2011 budget proposal, the Congress (especially the Senate) was not pleased.  They directed NASA to pursue an alternate heavy lifter, the SLS (Space Launch System), which is essentially a scaled-back version of the Ares 5.That launcher is now on track for its first mission in 2017.

If NASA does agree to spend the $75 million (more like $70 million after sequestration) this year for Europa mission preparation, there are several ways that the money could be usefully spent.  Instrument development, launch vehicle requirements and power system options could be funded, as well as studies to define the loads on the Clipper during launch.  Much will also depend on whether Congress again earmarks funds for a Europa mission in the new FY 2014 budget.  If it does, then the tug-of-war with the Administration will continue with the future of Europa exploration hanging in the balance. 

Editorial Note from Van: If you are an American citizen and you would like to see NASA continue work on the Europa Clipper, remember to let your Congressional representatives know.  Visit the Planetary Society's website for instructions on how to do so.  You can also follow the latest information on the budget on Twitter at #fundPlanetary. 

Reactions to the Budget Proposal

The future of NASA’s planetary science for the next decade will be decided here on Earth in the offices of the President’s administrators and Congress.  It takes five years to conceive, develop, and launch relatively simple missions such as those flown by the Discovery program.  Technically complex missions such as Mars rovers or Europa orbiters require longer periods to mature the concepts and bring all the required technologies to flight readiness.  NASA’s funding over the next two or three years will determine whether it will be ready to launch complex missions seven to ten years from now.

The President's proposed FY14 budget would end planning for a NASA mission to Europa.

A week and a half ago, the President releasedhis proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2014 and budget projections for the following five years.  That proposal continues support for NASA’s smaller planetary missions in the Discovery ($450-500M) and New Frontiers ($750M-1B) programs.  Funding for a 2020 Mars rover based on the Curiosity rover’s design is foreseen in future budgets.  The technology program to mature technologies to enable future missions was cut to provide funding to develop new supplies of plutonium-238 to enable missions that cannot depend on solar power. (I missed this implication in my initial budget analysis because the budget documents provided no detail on how technology funding would be spent.)  The budget proposes no funding for maturing the design of a future Europa orbiter even though Congress had just weeks earlier inserted funding for this in the FY13 budget signed by the President.

The budget did proposed detailed analysis of and technology development for a major new manned spaceflight initiative to bring a small (~7 m diameter) asteroid into lunar orbit where it could be examined by NASA astronauts.

Entangled in discussions of the FY14 proposed budget are plans of how to cut the just enacted FY13 budget by approximately 5% to meet the terms of the sequester.  Press reports have suggested that NASA plans to cut much of the increase approved by Congress for the planetary program in the FY13 budget to reduce cuts to other programs.

The President’s budget proposals are just that – proposals subject to change as Congress, the scientific community, and private citizens review the impacts and lobby for changes.  Since the budget proposal was released, the dance of lobbying and staking out positions has begun.  In this post, I’ve rounded up a summary of reactions as reported on various websites.  If you are an American citizen, I urge you to make your opinions known to your representatives in Congress.  (See the end of the post for information on how to easily do this.)

Division for Planetary Sciences Analysis

The American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences is one of the major associations for professional planetary researchers.  They released their analysis of the budget last week: [The proposed budget] “continues the same cuts to NASA’s planetary science program that were proposed in last year’s FY13 Budget Request. The FY14 request is almost $300M less than the FY12 approved operating plan… There is some good news: the Research and Analysis (R&A) program appears to receive an $8M increase in FY14 compared to FY12, and remain flat for the out-years. Funding would be provided to the Discovery Program which may enable advancement of the next AO to FY14… Many other elements of the NASA planetary program, however, suffer. The Europa Clipper pre-project study funded by Congress in FY13 has no future according to the FY14 Budget Request… Cassini might be shut down in FY15… One concern is that while the total funding requested for the Mars 2020 rover mission seems adequate, the funding profile is heavily “back-loaded” meaning the bulk of the funds would be provided in the last two years. Lessons learned from past missions show back-funded missions to be at high risk of cost over-run.”

Congressional Reaction

Space News reports that Senator Mikulski, chairwoman of the Senate’s  Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies that funds NASA among other agencies, is “concerned” about the level of cuts proposed for the planetary program in the FY14 budget compared to the FY13 approved budget.  

A group of two Senators and two Representativeswrote NASA reminding its administrator that Congress approved a larger FY13 budget and requesting that NASA apply the sequester evenly across its programs.  This letter apparently was in response to the reports that NASA planned to eliminate much or all of the increase in the approved FY13 planetary budget to preserve funding for other programs from the sequester. 

Editorial Note: As is usual in NASA related Congressional positions, all the senators and representatives taking stances represent districts or states with substantial NASA activity.  While protecting local jobs is a primary survival instinct for any politician, the support for a broader planetary program among these members of Congress seems genuine.  They took care to ensure that a substantial portion of the cuts proposed by the administration were reversed in the final FY13 bill in ways that supported the scientific community’s recommendations in the Decadal Survey.  The proposed FY14 budget would reverse much of the increase in the FY13 budget.

The Planetary Society

The Planetary Society advocates for a vigorous robotic and human programs to explore the solar system.  After leading (and largely winning) a spirited fight to have many of the cuts proposed in the original FY13 budget reversed, they are back again this year fighting the cuts in the FY14 budget.  You can read their plans here.

Editorial: U.S. Planetary Science: Fading to Black

Two former senior managers in NASA’s science program, Robert Braun and Noel Hinners, wrote an editorial forSpace News (which does not require a subscription to read).  “By any objective measure, planetary science is one of America’s crown jewels… Despite the success that has built up over decades, today we are on a path that relinquishes U.S. planetary science leadership. Starting in 2017, with the end of the Juno mission at Jupiter and the Cassini mission at Saturn, NASA will only have spacecraft at or on their way to one planet: Mars… Because it takes at least five years to conceive, design and implement a planetary science mission, this cliff is not only upon us, it is getting larger with each passing day. The next suite of planetary science missions should already be in development… Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget request for NASA continues the draconian path for planetary science laid out in the administration’s 2013 request… Does the U.S. really want to cede leadership of the scientific exploration of the rest of the solar system to other nations?”

Editorial Note: The opinion piece somewhat overstates the Mars focus.  The administration’s proposed budget continues support for the Discovery and New Frontiers programs.  While Discovery selections can target Mars (and the InSight Mars geophysical station in development does), it is likely that at least some future selected missions will target other destinations.  None of the approved targets for New Frontiers missions, including the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission in development, include Mars. 

However, Braun and Hinners are correct in their assessment of large missions (>$1B), where only Mars missions are envisioned.  And by the end of the decade, 60% of NASA’s planetary mission budget would focus on Mars, with the rest split between the more limited Discovery and New Frontiers missions.  This is not the balanced program of destinations envisioned in the Decadal Survey.

Reaction to the Asteroid Retrieval

In general, the most positive responses to NASA’s proposal to bring an asteroid to lunar orbit came from supporters of future asteroid mining.  Among other observers, the reactions ranged from wait and see the results of the analysis to be done this year to skepticism.  (If this proposal interests you, both the Space Review and Space Policy Online articles go into some depth in their analysis.)

The Space Review quotes Steve Squyres, (Principal Investigator for the Mars Opportunity mission, past chair for the planetary Decadal Survey, and current chair of NASA’s Advisory Committee) as saying, “I can’t assess it,” he said. “I don’t know if this can be done or not. I don’t know what it’s going to cost. It’s a very new idea, it’s very immature, it needs a really hard, carefully considered look, and then we’ll see.”

Space Policy Online reports that, “Skeptics point out that, apart from technical challenges, there is no explanation of where the money will come from to execute the mission in future years...   NASA said it thinks it might be able to do it for less [than the current ~$2.5B estimate] because some of the work is already underway, but the basis for that optimism is obscure since the agency will not even complete a mission concept study until the end of this summer… there is confusion over the relationship of this mission to protecting Earth from asteroids as well as why about humans are needed to bring back a sample of an asteroid when NASA already is building a robotic probe (OSIRIS-REx) to do that (not to mention that Japan already has done so and is planning a second mission), and the budget is murky in the short term and lacks credibility for the long term.”

Editorial Thought: I find the asteroid retrieval proposal intriguing.  I think too little is known about the technical issues and true cost to build a strategy around it just yet.  I look forward to learning those details as they become available in the next year.  For the current year, NASA is increasing funding for technologies essential to a possible retrieval but that would also be useful for other missions.

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The DSP news release provided practical advice on how you can share your opinions on NASA’s planetary budget with Congress, which will write the final FY14 budget:

“We urge every member of the Division to write letters to your two senators and your representative expressing: (1) your thanks for the past support of Congress; (2) your concern about the sequester and the implications of the President’s FY14 Budget Request for the FY13 budget and all later years; and (3) your plea for continued support from Congress.

“Please write to your senators and representative today. A hand-written letter, faxed to your representative, is best. You can also use the website provided by The Planetary Society to send your own letter or their letter, which you can edit (http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/be-a-space-advocate/take-action/); you do not need to be a member of The Planetary Society to use their website.

“To influence the FY13 NASA operating plan and the FY14 budget, the time to act is now. Please support planetary science and do not delay. A sample letter is given below, and will be posted on our website.”

Proposed NASA Planetary Science Budget for 2014

The President’s Office of Management and Budget has released its requested for NASA funding for Fiscal Year 2014. 

The budget also projects funding for an additional five years.  Because NASA’s missions require multiple years of funding to develop, launch, and operate, these projections are what NASA’s managers will use to decide what missions they can fly.  So if Congress, for example, funds a new mission for a single year (say an Europa mission, as it did in the final passed FY13 mission) and that mission isn’t in the five year forecast, NASA’s managers cannot plan to take that mission to completion.  (Because NASA is part of the President’s administration, NASA managers are required to support and plan to the projected budgets provided by the President’s Office of Management and Budget.)

My description below is based on the FY14 budget proposal.  The President’s larger budget proposes to replace the sequester (which began in FY13 and is current law to continue for a decade) with budget cuts elsewhere in the budget.  NASA’s FY12 budget was $17.8B.  Under the sequester, the FY13 budget will be $16.6B.  However, the proposed budget for FY14 is $17.7B.  If Congress does not agree to end the sequester starting with the FY14 budget, the numbers in the post may well go down.

Because the planning to implement the FY13 budget sequestration will not be completed for another month or so, the budget document does not list an FY13 budget amount for most items.  The graphs in this post either use the projected budgets in the FY13 proposal or the amounts that Congress approved (but that may change because of the sequester).

The budget does propose to define a mission to capture an asteroid and return it to the vicinity of the Earth.  Very little of this funding is in the Planetary Science Division, so I will not discuss this program in this post.

Planetary Science highlights from NASA Administrator Bolden’s budget overview.

The good news:

All missions in development or currently flying remain fully funded (but see below on continuing mission funding).  Missions in development are the lunar LADEE orbiter (2013 launch), Mars MAVEN orbiter (2013), Mars InSight geophysical station (2016), and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return (2016)  (and contributions for several foreign planetary missions).  In NASA’s Heliophysics program, funding is maintained for two solar missions, a joint mission with the European Space Agency, Solar Orbiter (2017), and a NASA mission that repeatedly will approach very close to the outer atmosphere of the sun, Solar Probe Plus (2018).

The budget proposes to increase the Discovery program ($424-500M missions) sufficiently to enable the selection of the next mission to begin in early 2014 instead of 2015.  At this higher funding rate, NASA can afford three to three and a half Discovery missions per decade (my back of the spreadsheet calculation) instead of two.

The budget fully supports a robust Mars program.  Funding is projected for the Mars 2020 rover, which will be based on the Curiosity rover’s design and entry and descent system.

The New Frontiers program would continue at essentially the same funding rate, which would allow slightly less than two missions per decade.  The selection of the next New Frontiers mission is scheduled to begin in 2016.

Funding is provided for producing new plutonium-238 to enable missions that cannot operate on solar power.

The budget proposed to double funding (to $40M per year) for the search for Near Earth asteroids.

Funding for Research and Analysis (which supports the planetary science research community) will have a small increase (from $122M in FY12 to $130M in FY14).  The Technology program, which develops new technologies to enable future missions, will have a slight budget decline in FY14 and then relatively flat budgets (but with ups and downs) in the out years.

Congressionally-approved budgets for major Planetary Science mission programs (solid lines) and projected budgets from the FY14 budget proposal (dashed lines).  Dotted lines show projected budgets from the FY13 budget proposal.  The Mars and Discovery programs are projected to have larger budgets in the FY14 proposal than in the FY13 proposal, while the Outer Planets program is projected to have smaller budgets.  The FY13 sequester may cause changes to the Congressionally-approved FY13 budgets, especially for the Outer Planets program.  Click on the image for a larger version.

The bad news:

The administration really, really does not want to fund a Europa mission.  The Outer Planets budget drops precipitously after FY14 and the end of the currently funded Cassini Solstice mission (but see below on Cassini’s future).  The budget documents state that, “The Europa Study Team submitted its final report in response to the recommendation by the decadal survey to immediately examine ways to reduce the cost of the mission… The budget, however, does not, and cannot, accommodate any of these mission concepts at this time. ... The Outer Planets Flagship project is not funded in FY 2014. NASA is not able to support development of an Outer Planets Flagship mission in the foreseeable future.  Instead, as described in the Mars Exploration Program section, available funding supports a future Mars program that is consistent with the first priority of the National Academies' decadal survey for planetary research. “

While Congress added significant new funds to the final FY13 NASA budget to begin work on a Europa mission, this funding is not continued in the new budget proposal.  [I suspect that this funding will be deleted from the FY13 budget as NASA adjusts budgets to account for the sequester (see this post for more).]

Continuing missions

As mentioned above, the proposed budget appears to fully fund all operating missions through the end of their currently approved missions.  Where a spacecraft is expected to still be operational at the end of the currently approved funding, the document states that future mission extensions can be funded if approved by NASA’s Senior Review process.  (This is a review by senior scientists to evaluate and rank the value of continued mission operations and funding.) 

For the Mars program, the budget proposal shows the operating budget for FY14 for each mission, and then has a large (>$80M per year) line item to support extended mission after that.  Other programs do not have this type of funding bucket to pull from for extended missions.  This may be particularly important for the Cassini mission, where the Outer Planets budget drops from a projected $79M (FY14) to around $25M by FY16. 

Per the budget documents, “The [Cassini] Solstice mission [now funded] will continue to operate and conduct data analysis through September 2015, at which time it will undergo competitive Senior Review with all other PSD operating missions.  Pending successful Senior Review in 2015, the mission will conclude in 2018, after another 155 revolutions around the planet, 54 flybys of Titan, and 11 flybys of Enceladus.”  However, if operations are to be funded from 2015 to 2018, NASA will need to find new funds to support Cassini.

Editorial Thoughts:  When I started this blog, I decided it would not be an advocacy blog.  Other organizations, particularly the Planetary Society, do an excellent job of advocacy.  As you can read on the Planetary Society blog, the reaction to this budget is not positive.  (See 2014 NASA Budget Cuts $200 million from Planetary Science -- Again and Bad Budget News for NASA's Planetary Exploration Program.)

I’m pleased to see the increase to the Discovery program that will increase the number of missions that will fly per decade.  This has been an incredibly successful program; the whack the program took in the FY13 proposed budget, if maintained, would have been devastating.

I’m disappointed to see the budget ruling out any chance for a Europa mission, but I had expected this.  The administration has decided to put its planetary Flagship (>$1B missions) dollars into Mars.  I hope that Congress continues to push for funding for a Europa mission and inserting it into the budget.  I really want to see the Europa Clipper mission fly.

I am worried about the future of the Cassini mission.  While the budget document talks about the possibility of an extended mission to 2018, there isn’t a budget bucket to pull the dollars from.  My experience with budgets over a couple of careers has been to view money as either there or not.  So I am worried and hope that my worry will prove to be for naught.  Here is how the budget document describes what a further extension of the Cassini mission would do: “In 2017, an encounter with Titan will change its orbit in such a way that, at closest approach to Saturn, it will be only 3,000 kilometers above the planet’s cloud tops, and below the inner edge of the D ring. This sequence of approximately 15 ‘proximal orbits’ will provide an opportunity for an entirely different mission for the Cassini spacecraft, investigating science questions never anticipated at the time Cassini was launched. Cassini completed its prime mission in July 2008, completed its Equinox extended mission in July 2010, and began the Solstice extended mission in October 2010. The Cassini mission will end when another encounter with Titan will send the Cassini probe into Saturn’s atmosphere.”  What is at stake is the ability for the Cassini mission to begin an entirely new mission in its close orbits that will capture much of the science that the Juno mission will for Jupiter.

More Information

The complete NASA budget document (very long) can be read here

For summaries of the overall NASA budget, see Space Policy Online and Space Politics

Changes in budget projects from different proposed budgets. Compared to the FY11 budget projections, actual budget have been much smaller with steep declines forecasted in the FY12 and FY13 budgets.  The FY14 projects are an increase compared to the FY13 projections.

Actual (FY10-12) and projected budgets (FY13 and beyond) budgets for NASA’s science divisions.  FY13 budgets are from the FY13 budget proposal and do not reflect either the final Congressional budget or the changes possible from the FY13 budget sequester.