Casey Dreier with The Planetary Society
made substantial contributions to this post.
In the children’s book, The Little
Prince, there is a delightful drawing of a boa constrictor that has a bulging
stomach because it swallowed an elephant.
In the coming year, I believe that the key development for NASA’s
mission to Europa will be an agreement on how the agency plans to accommodate the
monetary bulge that will come from funding this mission. The results of the negotiations between the
agency’s managers, the President’s budget managers, and Congress likely will
determine when this and other new missions will fly in the coming decade.
(I had hoped to include the drawing from
the book, but it appears that the copyright is still in effect in the United
States and France. You can see it at this
webpage or a picture of a real constrictor after it swallowed a goat on this
page.)
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| Summary of the planned Europa multi-flyby mission from a 2013 presentation. This chart is the only one I know of that provides a cost estimate from an independent review. The official budget for the mission has yet to be established and may differ from this estimate. Since this slide, the actual instrument payload has been selected and Congress has mandated that the mission also carry a Europa lander. |
So why does the boa-elephant analogy
work for understanding the funding for the Europa mission? Think of NASA’s planetary science budget as a
hose – or snake if you prefer – that’s of relatively similar width from year to
year (except for the attempted 20% cut 2013, but that’s another story). Generally,
the overall amount of money available to fund all future and existing planetary
missions is relatively consistent over the near future.
But when you’re building a spacecraft,
your funding needs are not consistent year to year. Over the course of the
development, costs grow substantially, peak, and then tail off. In the first
years of developing a mission, spending is lower as much of the work is
designing and validating technology needed for the spacecraft. Spending rapidly increases as parts are
built, greater numbers of engineers and technicians are assigned the project, and
pieces are assembled and tested. Most projects actually peak in funding needs a
year or two before they launch, creating the equivalent of an elephant’s bulge
in a boa constrictor. Spending typically
drops before launch, finally reaching a low and steady pace that represents the
costs of operating the mission in flight.
Because the overall amount of funding
available for new missions is generally flat, NASA’s project managers carefully
stagger the development of new missions in order to prevent different projects
from peaking at the same time.
 |
| The actual and planned spending for planetary missions in development this decade showing the characteristic bulge in spending in the years leading up to launch (2016 for the OSIRIS-Rex asteroid sample missions, was to have been 2016 for the InSight Mars geophysical station, and 2020 for the Mars 2020 rover). As the development funding bulge for one mission ramps down, the bulge for the next mission can ramp up without creating the need for wide swings in the overall Planetary Science Division’s budget. Figures are from actual budgets through FY16 and are the projected funding from the FY16 budget proposal. |
For the last several years, Congress and
NASA have sparred over when the Europa mission should be staggered in respect
to other missions. Supporters in Congress want to see the mission launch by
2022, and are willing to increase the overall funding available to Planetary
Science to help incorporate the Europa bulge. NASA has only committed to
sometime in the to the mid-to-late 2020s, and has shown little desire to
increase overall funding to planetary science. To efficiently develop the
Europa mission, the two will have to reach an agreement on a funding plan and
launch date.
If a Europa mission is to launch by 2022,
its funding peak will occur around the same time as the funding peak for the Mars
2020 rover, NASA’s other major planetary mission. NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and
Europa missions are both Flagship missions with an expected cost of around $2
billion. Congress, however, has stated
that the Europa mission must utilize the Space Launch System booster (cost
unknown) and include a lander that could add upwards of $700M to the mission’s total
cost. The net result is that Congress
has mandated two large simultaneous bulges be funded at once for the 2020 rover
and Europa mission.
Absent an increase in the budget for the
Planetary Science Division in the late 2010s, these large missions could crowd
out other, smaller missions. Both
Congress and the White House have shown interest in ramping up the low-cost
Discovery program over the next few years in an attempt to restore the cadence
destroyed by cuts earlier in the decade. There is also the next New Frontiers
mission, a medium-class planetary spacecraft that would launch by 2024. The funding bulges for these missions could
overlap those of the Mars 2020 and Europa missions, creating more competition
for funding.
To achieve everyone’s goals would
require an increase of funding for NASA’s Planetary Science Division significantly
above what the White House has proposed in recent years.
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| Jason Callahan and Casey Dreier of The Planetary Soceity have estimated what future NASA planetary budgets might look like if all the missions planned for development in the next few years are budgeted. The result is a substantial increase over the current planetary budget for Fiscal Year 2016 of $1.63B. |
First, some background. Unlike Congress,
which only appropriates money on an annual basis. Budgets proposed by the President’s
budget officers (in consultation with NASA’s managers) project out five years,
with the first year the actual request for the next year’s funding from
Congress and the subsequent years being notional, but indicative of the
agency’s planning. For NASA to issue the multi-year contracts needed to develop
a mission, there has to be a clear, long-term commitment from the agency that
is reflected in the official budget request. It is very rare for a spacecraft
to successfully come to fruition without appearing in the official President’s
budget.
We will soon see if there is agreement
for the Planetary Science budget to increase to accommodate this new mission.
The President’s FY2017 budget request will be released in early February, we
will see if it contains the larger proposed funding to include a Europa mission
launch in the early 2020s.
But if the overall budget of planetary
science doesn’t increase, there are several alternatives that the
Administration could pursue:
- Delay the launch of the Europa mission to the mid-2020’s to push out its spending bulge well after the Mars program needs
- Delay the smaller Discovery and New Frontiers missions and use that funding for Europa, which would result in an unbalanced planetary program with just two Flagship missions launching in the next decade. And this wouldn’t provide all the funding needed for the two Flagship missions.
- Take the additional funding from elsewhere in NASA’s budget (which would result in either hurting the human spaceflight program that has strong political backing, or hurting one of NASA’s other science program such as the Earth Science program (the latter of which has been proposed by various members of Congress, but which I oppose – we are rapidly modifying our planet and need satellites to identify and monitor the changes))
Any of these alternatives represent
solutions typical of those made in budget negotiations, which assume a flattish
overall budget with the individual line items being traded off.
I’m hoping that this year represents a
new possibility. The public has
repeatedly shown its interest in planetary exploration through its avid
following of missions in the press and the internet. Congress has noticed that interest and been
willing to support increases in the NASA’s planetary program for several years. Several key members of Congress also are
personally interested in planetary exploration specifically and space science
in general and have consistently added money for Europa over the past few
years. Congress has also consistently increased NASA’s budget since 2013, providing
a surprising (and welcome) 7% increase in 2016.
This seems to be the year to attempt to
create a political consensus for a new, higher spending rate for NASA’s
planetary program. The set of proposed
missions is compelling. Congress is
willing. For the next year, before the
next President changes the players with the resulting delay in dealing with new
policies, we have stable management teams in the President’s budget office and
at NASA. And public interest groups like
the Planetary Society have shown that they can demonstrate the public’s support
for increased funding and build the political case for the needed funding.
These budget issues aren’t unique to the
Europa mission. They occur with any large
mission as NASA’s budgets are planned.
In a zero-sum game, something has to give. In recent years, though, Congress has shown
its willingness to increase the size of the budget to match the vision. Perhaps it will be possible to have a dream
line of up missions in development: Mars 2020, Europa, two or more Discovery
missions, and a New Frontiers mission.
It’s worth working for.
Appendix: Estimated Europa mission costs
I have seen just one official cost
estimate for the Europa multi-flyby mission (previously called the Europa
Clipper) in a mission definition update.
That estimate was for $2.1B without the launch (and was made by the
Aerospace Corporation, which NASA uses to provide independent mission cost
estimates). To estimate total spending
that must be done before a possible 2022 launch, we need to add in the possible
costs of the newly required Europa lander and the launch vehicle. We should also subtract the costs of post launch
operations (which seem to run $50M to $70M a year for Flagship missions) and
money already spent or appropriated through FY16.
Here’s what the budget swag looks like:
+$2.1B Multi-flyby spacecraft
+$0.5B SLS launch vehicle*
+$0.7B Europa lander*
-$0.3B Post launch operations*
-$0.4B Already spent/appropriated
This back of the envelope calculation
results in approximately $2.6B remaining spending before launch. If launch is in 2022, then that leaves six
years after FY2016, for an average spending rate of $440M per year. More likely, there will be a higher peak spending
rate for a couple of years with lower spending in the beginning and end of this
period (based on spending patterns of other missions). A possible average, though, is as far as I
can push this thought experiment.
*SLS cost estimate from another Europa
mission presentation; lander costs from a press account and may not be firm;
operations costs assume a five year prime mission at a swag of $60M per year.
