Бюджет NASA-2013

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Budget bill provides $525 million for commercial crew

WASHINGTON -- Senate appropriators released a draft NASA budget Tuesday, proposing a cut of more than $300 million from the agency's funding request for commercial space transportation, but adding money for development of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion capsule for human exploration of deep space.
 
The Senate appropriations subcommittee for commerce, science and justice, chaired by Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., approved the fiscal year 2013 budget legislation Tuesday. Fiscal year 2013 begins Oct. 1.

The House is expected to produce its own NASA budget later this year.

The White House in February requested $830 million for NASA's commercial crew program, which was chartered to foster private development of rockets and spacecraft to carry astronaut crews to and from the International Space Station. With the space shuttle's retirement, NASA must purchase seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA's request for commercial crew in fiscal 2012 was cut in half by Congress, delaying the scheduled start of crew transportation services by one year until 2017. Officials have warned another significant reduction from next year's $830 million request would cause another delay.

In the budget mark-up released Tuesday, Senate appropriators would provide $525 million for commercial crew.

Some senators, including Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, have accused NASA of robbing the budget for the Space Launch System and Orion programs, which are designed for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit, to pay for commercial crew development.

Hutchison is the ranking member of the Senate appropriations subcommittee for commerce, science and justice.

The SLS and Orion budgets each saw slight cuts in the White House's fiscal 2013 request, which was released Feb. 13.

In testimony before Senate committees, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said the heavy-lift rocket and capsule were making good progress, so the space agency could afford taking some funding away from those programs, highlighting the imperative of keeping pace in the commercial crew effort.

The Senate budget proposal includes $1.2 billion for the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle and $1.5 billion for the Space Launch System. The Obama administration's budget request includes $1 billion for Orion and about $1.3 billion for the SLS program.

The Senate appropriations bill calls for restoring $100 million to NASA's Mars science programs, responding to a cut to robotic exploration of Mars in the White House's budget blueprint. The Senate budget proposal includes $461 million for unmanned Mars research.

Senators also wish to shift $1.6 billion in funding for NOAA's weather satellites to NASA, boosting the space agency's overall budget to $19.4 billion. NASA currently manages acquisition and procurement for weather satellites under a cost reimbursement agreement with NOAA.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1204/18senate/

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The House and Senate bills would provide more funding for NASA's planetary science program than the White House requested. In its budget blueprint sent to Congress in February, the White House proposed reducing funding for NASA's Planetary Science Division from $1.5 billion in 2012 to less than $1.2 billion in 2013. The House bill includes $1.4 billion for planetary science, including $150 million for Mars Next Decade, an integrated Mars exploration strategy designed to address scientific and human spaceflight goals. The House directs NASA to make sure the Mars Next Decade program includes a sample-return mission with the National Research Council's stamp of approval. If the National Research Council determines, however, that NASA's proposed sample-return mission will not succeed, the money should be used instead for exploration of Jupiter's moon Europa, the bill states. The Senate plan includes $5 billion for NASA's overall science program but the committee did not release information on the amount budgeted for planetary sciences except to note that the bill includes $461 million for robotic exploration of Mars.

http://www.spacenews.com/policy/120420-nasa-faces-budget-cuts-bills.html

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$17.5B NASA Spending Bill Favors Planetary Probes over Crew Taxis

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is slated to begin debate May 8 on a 2013 appropriations bill that would cut NASA's budget by more than $200 million, overhaul commercial crew procurement plans and potentially force the agency to begin work on a Europa orbiter instead of a Mars probe.

These provisions are part of a broader $51 billion Commerce, Justice, Science spending package approved April 26 by the House Appropriations Committee.

By voting to reduce NASA's budget to $17.57 billion — a $226 million cut that would leave the agency with its smallest budget since 2006 — House appropriators set the stage for a showdown with their Senate counterparts, who voted April 19 to raise NASA's budget to $19.4 billion and make the agency responsible for funding the civilian weather satellites it already orders on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Not counting the $1.6 billion in weather satellite money included in the Senate bill, NASA's budget would decline by $41.5 million.

Another key difference between the House and Senate bills is their treatment of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The White House is seeking $830 million in 2013 to fund continued development of two or more privately operated crew transportation systems that could be ready to haul astronauts to the international space station by 2017.

Both the House and Senate bills deny the full request, providing just $500 million and $525 million, respectively. But the House bill would also direct NASA to narrow the field of competitors sooner than the agency intends and speed the transition to traditional government contracts from the flexible Space Act Agreements the agency has been using since it started the Commercial Crew Program in 2010.

In the report accompanying their bill, House appropriators say that narrowing the field now would reduce the projected $4.8 billion cost of the program and free up money for planetary science, human space exploration, aeronautics research and other priorities.

"The Committee believes that many of these concerns would be addressed by an immediate downselect to a single competitor or, at most, the execution of a leader-follower paradigm in which NASA makes one large award to a main commercial partner and a second small award to a back-up partner," the report says.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, in an April 25 statement. said the changes House appropriators are proposing "would result in a significant delay in restoring U.S. human access to orbit.

"NASA has carefully designed a program that maintains competition, and preserves safety, through the development and certification process, and that uses the appropriate contracting mechanism at each stage," the statement said. "It is best to leave decisions on program management to the NASA human spaceflight professionals who have access to all the information and have worked closely with all the competing companies."

Planetary Protection

House appropriators, like their Senate counterparts, rejected a White House proposal to cut NASA's $1.5 billion planetary science budget by 20 percent next year. "Planetary science has long been one of NASA's most successful programs, and the cuts proposed in the budget request will endanger this strong record and deviate significantly from the program plan envisioned by the most recent planetary science decadal survey," House appropriators wrote in the report accompanying their bill.

House appropriators included $1.4 billion for planetary science — a 7 percent cut compared with 2012 — and directed NASA to put an additional $115 million into the Discovery and New Frontiers programs of competitively selected missions.

The House bill also carves out an additional $88 million, providing $150 million in total, for Mars Next Decade, the planning effort NASA kicked off in February after withdrawing from Europe's ExoMars sample-collection campaign. But House appropriators make clear they do not want NASA to launch a Mars mission in 2018 just for the sake of launching a Mars mission. If the National Research Council determines NASA's Mars Next Decade mission concept "will not lead to the accomplishment of sample return" — the top priority flagship-class mission in the latest decadal survey — then NASA would be required to shift the Mars money into an outer planets flagship program "in order to begin substantive work on the second priority mission, a descoped Europa orbiter," the report says.

The House bill also includes $14.5 million for an ongoing effort to restart U.S. production of plutonium-238, a radioisotope NASA uses to supply electricity to spacecraft venturing to destinations beyond the range of solar power, such as Jupiter and its icy moon Europa.

House appropriators covered these and other increases by boosting the NASA Science Mission Directorate's budget to $5 billion, which is only $5 million above this year's level but more than $180 million above what the White House is seeking.

Within the $5 billion, Earth science and heliophysics would receive "modest increases" compared with 2012, but not as much as the White House requested. The James Webb Space Telescope, which has grown so expensive that it now commands its own budget line, would get $628 million in 2013, the same as the request. Like last year's spending bill, the 2013 bill would impose an $8 billion cap on what NASA can spend on Webb through its launch in 2018.

Other highlights of the House bill include:

    * $632.5 million for NASA's Space Technology program, which is $57 million above this year's level but $66 million below request.
    * $1.99 billion for the Space Launch System (SLS) and related ground systems, or about $54 million more than those efforts received for 2012.
    * $1 billion for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, or about $200 million below this year's level.

The House bill, if it becomes law, would give NASA 180 days from enactment to submit a number of reports, including one identifying the destinations NASA intends to explore with Orion and SLS and outlining the other flight hardware — and money — the agency needs to accomplish these missions.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in a report released in March, said NASA is evaluating 15 possible missions for Orion and SLS ranging from sending astronauts to an asteroid to landing on Mars.

"SLS program officials stated that the lack of a defined mission is a challenge when trying to design and build a vehicle, because the program will have to build the flexibilities into the design to accommodate mission specific requirements," the Government Accountability Office report said.

http://www.spacenews.com/policy/175b-nasa-spending-bill-favors-planetary-probes-over-crew-taxis.html

[Georgij]

и насколько велик шанс, что к европе что то будет? кто из спецов по бюджетным хитросплетениям расскажет?)

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и насколько велик шанс, что к европе что то будет? кто из спецов по бюджетным хитросплетениям расскажет?)

Если ничего умного по Марсу-2018 не придумают, вероятность повышается. Просто очередной марсианский запуск уже не вставляет

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Video: We Must Explore

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/we-must-explore.html

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С текущими бюджетными планами NASA не сможет запустить еще один марсоход до 2020 года.
"Стационарный посадочный аппарат сможем в 2018."
"Орбитальный аппарат сделаем быстро."

Призрак Марс Сэмпл Ретурн продолжает маячить на горизонте.

Figueroa Rules Out Another NASA Mars Rover Before 2020
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/120508-figuera-rules-out-rover.html

[Georgij]

а когда окончательно примут бюджет?

[Liss]

а когда окончательно примут бюджет?

До ноябрьских выборов -- вряд ли.

[АниКей]

House Passes NASA Budget Bill - Minus A Few Hundred Million http://nasawatch.com/archives/2012/05/house-passes-na.html

[Salo]

http://spaceref.com/space-quarterly-magazine/do-budget-cuts-mean-and-end-to-flagship-programs.html

Do Budget Cuts Mean an End to Flagship Programs?

by Marcia S. Smith
 Posted June 5, 2012 10:36 AM



This artist's concept of a proposed Mars sample return mission.
© NASA/JPL Caltech

The Obama Administration's decision to cut NASA's planetary exploration budget for FY2013 and beyond generated howls of protest. The action forced the United States to shelve planned cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) on two Mars probes in 2016 and 2018 that were the beginning of a string of missions to fulfill the holy grail of Mars scientists - returning a sample of Mars to Earth for analysis.

As the weeks have passed, however, the news turns out to be not nearly as dire as first imagined. While the future of Mars cooperation with ESA remains unclear, a smaller U.S. mission in 2016 is a possibility and NASA is working to define a mid-sized mission that it hopes to launch in 2018 or 2020. Simultaneously, the agency is reformulating its overall Mars exploration strategy to create an integrated approach that responds to the needs of both the science and the human exploration goals of the agency.

With Congress preparing to restore $100-150 million of the money the President proposed to cut in FY2013, one almost has to ask what the fuss is all about. The series of missions leading to a Mars sample return in the next decade recommended by the National Research Council (NRC) in last year's planetary science Decadal Survey and NASA's reputation as a partner in international science projects remain at risk, but even those may survive.

The Budget Cut Heard 'Round the World

The Obama Administration's fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request for NASA is $17.71 billion, a slight decrease from the $17.77 billion it received for FY2012. Of that, the request for the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is $4.91 billion, a little less than the $5.07 billion it got for FY2012. With determination to cut the federal deficit driving everything in Washington, austerity is the watchword amid widespread sentiment that NASA did not fare badly at all.

The ruckus is because the cut to the SMD was directed at planetary science rather than spread over all the SMD disciplines, including astrophysics, heliophysics and earth science. The request for planetary science is $1.2 billion, a 21 percent cut from the $1.5 billion it got for FY2012, while the other areas get increases. Aggravating planetary scientists in particular is the increased spending on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with its severe cost overruns. An often heard complaint is that the money from planetary science was used to pay for those overruns though NASA officials decline to make that connection.

NASA and White House officials insist that they have nothing against planetary exploration generally or Mars specifically. Instead, the reasons for cutting that part of NASA's science program were two-fold, they say. First, with a rover (Opportunity) and two U.S. orbiters (Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) already investigating Mars, another rover (Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity) on the way, and another orbiter (MAVEN) scheduled for launch next year, Mars exploration is doing fine. Second, the United States is not in a financial position to commit to the long term series of expensive "flagship" missions planned for Mars sample return, of which the 2016 and 2018 missions with ESA were the first. The 2016 ESA-led ExoMars mission is an orbiter that was to include a demonstrator to
test entry-descent-and-landing (EDL), while the 2018 NASA-led mission was to be a rover.


Artist's impression of the Europa Jupiter System Mission which the European Space Agency might undertake with Russia and Japan after NASA funding became in doubt. NASA/ESA/Artist Michael Carroll

Flagships or No Flagships?

During a briefing to the NASA Advisory Council's Science Committee March 6, SMD chief John Grunsfeld said that the Obama Administration did not want to approve any more flagship missions until NASA had completed its current flagships, JWST and the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and its rover, Curiosity. MSL also overran its budget and suffered a two-year launch delay because of technical problems.

Grunsfeld's comment prompted speculation about whether an anti-flagship sentiment was resurfacing. In the 1990s, overruns, delays and failures on large science missions led to their being derisively referred to as "Battlestar Gallaticas" after a sci-fi television show of that era. Then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin instituted a "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy of launching smaller missions more frequently instead of large, complex flagship missions.

With the passage of time, however, it became apparent that some scientific questions could not be answered with the smaller missions and flagships returned. For Mars, it was MSL, which launched in 2011, two years late and well over budget. It will land on Mars on August 6 EDT (August 5 PDT) using a technically challenging "sky crane" design that will have mission managers holding their breath until a signal is received that it is safely on the surface.

Despite the problems with JWST and MSL, however, Paul Shawcross, Branch Chief for Science and Space at the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), denies that the White House opposes flagships. He told the National Research Council's (NRC's) Space Studies Board on April 4 that "we're not against flagships" and there was no "bias against Mars." He insisted that the decision to cut Mars funding was budget-based.

Indeed, the "bible" of the planetary science community, the NRC's 2011 planetary science Decadal Survey, gave just that advice to NASA - if money becomes tight, cut flagships first.

The NRC, part of the National Academies, conducts Decadal Surveys at NASA's request for each of NASA's science disciplines every 10 years (hence the name "decadal";). These highly respected documents usually are faithfully followed by NASA and Congress because they represent a hard-won consensus of the scientists most directly involved in a scientific discipline, whether planetary science, astrophysics, heliophysics or earth science. The studies prioritize the most important scientific questions and identify missions to answer them.

The 2011 planetary science Decadal Survey, for the first time, not only identified priorities, but provided decision rules to guide NASA in the event budgets were less than expected. The study was chaired by Cornell University's Steve Squyres, best known as the "father" of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. At a February meeting of NASA's Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), he stressed that the overarching consensus of the planetary science community was to protect the smaller missions in the Discovery and New Frontiers programs, along with Research and Analysis (R&A) and technology development. If anything had to be cut, the Decadal Survey's advice was to go after flagships first, exactly the path the Obama Administration followed.


This artist's concept of a proposed Mars sample return mission portrays the launch of an ascent vehicle. The solar panels in the foreground are part of a rover. The rover would have delivered to the ascent vehicle a cache of Martian rock samples that would have been left on the surface by a previous sample-collection rover. The ascent vehicle would release its sample container in Martian orbit, to be retrieved by a spacecraft for carrying the samples to Earth. NASA/JPL Caltech

A New Plan for Mars Exploration

Although the Administration decided against the Mars flagship missions planned with ESA for 2016 and 2018, at his February 13 budget briefing, Grunsfeld announced that he was initiating an effort to define a more affordable mission for launch in 2018. Mars and Earth are properly aligned in their orbits around the Sun every 26 months and some of those alignments are better than others. Grunsfeld calls 2018 a "sweet spot" and does not want to waste it. He concedes, however, that budgets may mean the mission will have to wait until the next opportunity in 2020.

He is not ruling out a mission in 2016 either. One of three missions competing in the Discovery category of smaller missions for launch in 2016 is a Mars mission called Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS). With MAVEN getting ready for launch in 2013, it may turn out that NASA does not miss any of the planetary alignment opportunities. NASA has launched probes to Mars at every opportunity since 1996 with one exception - 2009 - and only then because MSL was not ready.

Grunsfeld created the Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG) to define options for an affordable mission for 2018. MPPG is led by former NASA Mars Exploration Program Director Orlando Figueroa and is due to make its recommendations in August. The figure of $700 million has been mentioned as a target cost for the mission. At an April 13 teleconference updating MPPG's progress, Doug McCuistion, current Mars Exploration Program Director, revealed that the money for this new Mars mission is already in his budget. Granted, budget projections beyond the current year are just that, projections, not promises, but it is a strong indication that the Obama Administration supports the idea.

One question is whether that $700 million is best spent on a Mars mission that was not identified as a priority in the Decadal Survey, but is only now being conceptualized. The whole point of the Decadal Survey is to look at all the scientific priorities for solar system exploration - not only Mars - and decide what should be done first. Squyres said at the MEPAG meeting that under the Decadal Survey's decision rules, new missions to Mars "that lead directly to sample return" have very high priority, but any mission that does not should be openly competed in the Discovery program, not given an automatic nod. Thus, if whatever emerges from the MPPG does not "lead directly to sample return," it would be inconsistent with the Decadal Survey, even though the money apparently already has been put in the Mars budget line.

Congress is very supportive of Mars exploration - and of Decadal Survey recommendations. On April 19, the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee approved its version of the bill that will fund NASA for FY2013, adding $150 million for planetary exploration. It stipulates that the money be used for a Mars mission, but only if the NRC certifies that it is consistent with the Decadal Survey. If not, the money will go to the Decadal Survey's second priority for flagship missions, a probe to study Jupiter's moon Europa. The same day, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of the bill, adding $100 million for a Mars mission, without the conditions included by the House subcommittee.

Meanwhile, Grunsfeld, a former astronaut as well as a scientist, is leading a makeover of NASA's overall Mars exploration strategy. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden tapped Grunsfeld to lead an intra-agency NASA team to reformulate the agency's strategy for exploring Mars. The new plan is intended to address the needs of both SMD and the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD). Grunsfeld, HEOMD Associate Administrator Bill Gerstenmaier, Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati and Chief Technologist Mason Peck are devising an "integrated strategy" of robotic and human space exploration to meet President Obama's mandate to send people to the vicinity of Mars in the 2030s.


The proposed Flagship mission Titan Saturn System Mission would consist of a NASA orbiter and an ESA lander and research balloon. NASA/ESA

International Cooperation

What does all this mean for international cooperation? NASA has a rich history of international cooperation dating back to its origin in 1958. The poster child is the 15-nation International Space Station (ISS) that brings together the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and 11 European countries acting through ESA.

ESA is NASA's closest international partner, particularly in space science. In 2009, NASA and ESA signed an agreement to essentially merge their Mars exploration programs. As Obama Administration officials carefully point out, the agreement did not commit either side to participate in any joint missions. Rather it was a framework for ESA and NASA to work together to define "the most viable joint mission architectures." Still, the intent was clear - not simply choosing a single mission on which the two agencies would cooperate as done so many times in the past, but a new approach, joint planning for a series of missions over many years leading to a sample return from Mars.

NASA informally signaled ESA last summer that budget constraints might require a change in plans, but formal notification had to await release of the FY2013 budget in February. ESA had discussions with Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, last year to determine its level of interest in joining ExoMars. ESA and Russia also have a history of cooperation. Russia lost its Mars probe, Phobos-Grunt, in a November 2011 mishap, and was open to the possibility. It now has replaced the United States as ESA's partner on ExoMars.

NASA officials insist that international cooperation is essential to its programs and certainly wants to continue working with ESA. Jim Green, Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, publicly praises ESA for responding "with vision and not with anger" at NASA pulling out of ExoMars. ESA's Rolf deGroot, who heads the ExoMars program, was gracious at the February MEPAG meeting. When asked if ESA might be interested in participating in whatever program emerges from the MPPG deliberations, de Groot said "We are open to discuss any opportunities for cooperation."

NASA's international partners are accustomed to the zigs and zags of the U.S. space program, not that it makes such changes any easier to digest. One may wonder why any country chooses to cooperate with us at all. The answer probably lays in the fact even at a reduced level of $1.2 billion, the NASA planetary science budget dwarfs that of any other space agency and NASA's technical prowess is unmatched.

So despite the need for extreme flexibility when cooperating with the United States, many countries do and the majority of NASA's science missions involve international cooperation. Grunsfeld estimated at the April 13 MPPG update that three quarters of NASA's science missions are international. As for the international ramifications of walking away from the 2016 and 2018 Mars missions, OMB's Joydip (JD) Kundu told the NRC Space Studies Board on April 3 that budget constraints demanded that something in SMD be cut, and whatever mission was chosen probably would have involved reneging on an international commitment.

What's Next?

The MPPG report is due in August, the same month that MSL's rover, Curiosity, will land on Mars. Whether that landing succeeds or fails could be a factor in support for future Mars probes. As noted, the $2.5 billion mission is relying on a technically challenging system called a sky crane that looks precarious in a YouTube video animation.

Though public fascination with Mars seems to transcend failures like the three that occurred in the 1990s (Mars Observer, Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander), prognosticating on what will happen if Curiosity fails is itself a risky business. In today's environment with every penny being counted, enthusiasm for the increases currently included in the House subcommittee and Senate committee versions of NASA's funding bill could evaporate. A successful landing, conversely, could fuel subsequent Mars budget increases.

Mars is not the only fascinating object in the solar system and scientists advocating missions to the outer planets are vying for the same pot of money. Whatever happens with Mars this year, the budget wars are far from over.

[TAU]

интересно: Джэйм Перейра, декан факультета аэронавтики и астронавтики МИТ, предсказывает некоторое падение интереса к космонавтике в ближайшие годы в США. Учебные программы претерпевают соответствующие изменения: введен специализированный план, "инженер в аэрокосмической области с углубленным изучением ИТ", и "вообще инженер" на факультете, чтобы выпускники могли идти работать в любую отрасль.

еще интересно: из диалога с президентом американского инженерного общества Доном Гидденсом - аэрокосмическая отрасль США испытывает нехватку самого продуктивного слоя инженеров - 35-45 лет! есть "монстры", реализовывавшие грандиозные программы прошлого, но они уже старенькие, есть молодежь зеленая - а "среднего" возраста дефицит!

в общем, хоть и за океаном, а проблемы схожие с нашей космонавтикой...

[Liss]

Так вот о секвестре текущего бюджета-2013, который не утвержден Конгрессом и исполняется пока по графику 2012 ф.г.
Очередной бюллетень Американского института физики под названием FYI #30: Mechanics of Sequestration поясняет механику предстоящего со 2 марта секвестра, потому как никаких препятствий ему не предвидится.
(1) Секвестру подлежит 85 млрд расходов федерального бюджета.
(2) Оборонные статьи будут сокращены примерно на 8%, остальные на 5% в годовом исчислении.
(3) Так как 5 месяцев из 12 уже прошло, остаток годовых сумм придется урезать на 13% и 9% соответственно.
(4) Буква закона такова, что урезанию в равной степени подлежат все расходы вплоть до уровня отдельных программ и проектов. Нельзя сохранять одни статьи расходов на уровне 100% за счет более масштабного сокращения других.
(5) В общем, будет невесело.

[Salo]

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1302/23sequestration/#.USo1pDe55eE

Commercial crew program threatened by budget cuts
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
Posted: February 23, 2013

Automatic spending cuts due to go into effect March 1 would likely extend U.S. reliance on Russia for human spaceflight, delay development of badly-needed next-generation weather satellites, and force a reduction in radar scans searching for space debris, according to Obama administration officials.


Artist's concept of Boeing's CST-100 commercial crew spacecraft. Credit: Boeing
 
That's if Congress and the White House don't act to avoid the across-the-board cuts, which will be automatically triggered at the end of next week without a compromise on how to deal with the federal government's budget deficit.

NASA would lose about $894 million fr om its current budget outlook in the period between March 1 and Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2013.

According to a letter to the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the space agency's commercial crew program would suffer the brunt of the budget cuts.

By the second half of 2013, NASA says it will be unable to make payments to companies working on private spaceships under the agency's commercial crew program.

"Overall availability of commercial crew transportation services would be significantly delayed, thereby extending our reliance on foreign providers for crew transportation to the International Space Station," Bolden wrote in a letter to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

NASA has public-private partnership agreements with Boeing Co., SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fund the design and testing of commercial spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to the space station. NASA makes payments to the companies upon completion of predetermined development milestones.

Until a commercial provider becomes operational, which NASA projects by 2017, U.S. astronauts will ride Russian Soyuz spacecraft while voyaging to the space station and back to Earth.

Спойлер

Bolden wrote the automatic cuts, known as sequestration, could cause launch delays for NASA's scientific research satellites and potential cancellations of space technology projects, such as advanced communications, radiation protection, nuclear systems and other fields.

The White House and Congress agreed on the sequestration plan in 2011 as part of a compromise to raise the federal government's debt lim it. Sequestration was meant to be a "poison pill" to compel leaders in both parties to reach an agreement to rein in the budget deficit.

But lawmakers could not come to a resolution, and Congress reached a deal Jan. 1 to put off the spending cuts for two months and extend current income tax rates for individuals earning less than $400,000 and households earning less than $450,000.

Sequestration was originally set to go into effect at the beginning of 2013. It impacts all federal discretionary spending, slashing 8.2 percent annually from non-defense government agencies and 9.4 percent from military programs.

Unless Congress and the Obama administration agree on targeted budget cuts - sparing some programs and still hitting others - every corner of the government's military, research and regulatory apparatus will see their funding reduced.


Artist's concept of next-generation GOES weather satellites. Credit: NOAA
 
NOAA's next-generation geostationary weather observatories, currently scheduled for launch in 2015 and 2017, would face a delay of two or three years if the automatic budget cuts take effect and stay in place.

"This delay would increase the risk of a gap in satellite coverage and diminish the quality of weather forecasts and warnings," said Rebecca Blank, acting Secretary of Commerce.

Defense Department officials say sequestration would be devastating to the military, predicting thousands of furloughs and decreased combat readiness.

Air Force Space Command announced Feb. 8 it would reduce some missile warning and space surveillance operations.

Gen. Mark Welsh, Air Force chief of staff, told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 13 that Space Command would curtail observations using secondary radars to monitor for missile attacks and track objects in orbit.

The Air Force uses satellites and a network of ground-based radars for the early warning and surveillance tasks.

"We don't have as much redundancy now in the system and we don't have as much capacity to track objects in orbit," Welsh said.

Even if sequestration takes hold, it could be short-lived. The government's current budget resolution runs out March 27, and Congress must pass another budget by then to avoid a government shutdown. The new budget could include deficit reductions directed at specific programs, instead of across-the-board cuts.

[свернуть]

[АниКей]

How Will Sequestration Affect NASA?

by Nancy Atkinson on March 1, 2013
 http://www.universetoday.com/100377/how-will-sequestration-affect-nasa/ 
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden addresses the media at SpaceX's main hangar in Cape Canaveral, FL. The sequester will affect both NASA and SpaceX. Credit: NASA.
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.
Additionally, spending on the commercial crew program 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.


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."

[Александр Ч.]

Posted on Mar 03, 2013 08:24:29 AM | Administrator Charles Bolden |:
Industry's success in developing new space transportation systems is enabling NASA to focus on President Obama's goals of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s. We continue to develop the space technologies to make these missions possible even as we marvel at the ingenuity of our commercial partners in taking us to low Earth orbit on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, all of this progress could be jeopardized with the sequestration ordered by law to be signed by the President Friday evening. The sequester could further delay the restarting of human space launches from U.S. soil, push back our next generation space vehicles, hold up development of new space technologies, and jeopardize our space-based, Earth observing capabilities.

Ждем пятницы...

[instml]

A Victory for Exploration
 
Planetary Science Funding is Restored for 2013

I'm breaking out of a long-planned vacation to share some great news with everyone. Congress just passed a bill that achieves essentially every major policy goal of the Planetary Society in regards to NASA's Planetary Science program.

On March 21st, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR933, the Senate's version of a spending bill to fund the federal government for the rest of the year. Contained in this bill is new language restoring more than $200 million to NASA's Planetary Science program, reversing the vast majority of cuts proposed in President Obama's 2013 budget request. The President still needs to sign this bill to make it law, but that is expected to happen within the next few days.

The bill also specifically funds Plutonium-238 production, required for deep-space missions, and pre-formulation activities for a major mission to Europa. Also restored is a significant funding for the small planetary mission program, Discovery, which should increase the pace of these small, effective missions and move the next opportunity up to 2014 (from 2015 or 2016). I discuss in detail all of benefits here, in an earlier post.

This funding is still subject to the sequester, as is NASA's entire budget, which suffers an overall cut of almost $1 billion in this bill from the President's 2013 budget request. There is still a long way to go to ensure a strong future of exploration in the United States. We've won the battle, but 2014 and the future years remain ahead.

But still, this is huge news. I can't thank you enough for the work you've done in reaching out to Congress and the President to help defend this effective, exciting, and affordable division within NASA. Over sixty-thousand of our members and other supporters wrote and called their representatives and the President in support of this issue. Congress heard you. Our voices made a difference.

We need to keep this momentum. Your support of our Advocacy program and membership make this possible.
We'll keep you posted as we learn the exact details of what this means for NASA. But for now, I say thank you again, because I feel I can't say it enough.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2013/20130321-a-victory-for-exploration.html

[Valerij]

NASA Chief: We Will Renegotiate Contracts If Sequester Continues
By Frank Morring, Jr.
   

   
April 29, 2013
A continuation of across-the-board budget sequestration into fiscal 2014 will force NASA to renegotiate contracts, including those for commercial resupply of the International Space Station, and begin furloughing employees, according to Administrator Charles Bolden.

Testifying on NASA's fiscal 2014 budget request before the Senate Appropriations Committee April 25, Bolden said the agency has been able to accommodate the fiscal 2013 sequestration without furloughs or major programmatic disruptions. That will change Oct. 1 if sequestration continues, he told Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA.

Спойлер

"My assumption in recommending this budget to the president, and the president's assumption in sending it to the Congress, was that between him and all of you, with 100 senators and 400-plus members of Congress, we are going to solve the sequester problem in this budget coming out," Bolden said. "If that is not done, . . . it will impact the priorities that NASA and the Congress agreed to."

Impacts could include a delay in the planned 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope—a Goddard Space Flight Center project that Mikulski is watching closely—as well as the planned 2017 first flight of the heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS), continued development of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle and plans to begin flying U.S. crews on commercial spacecraft now being developed with partial NASA funding in 2017. The agency has long said that date will slip if Congress does not fund the program at the $822 million level requested in fiscal 2014, and Bolden said continued sequestration will also cause delays.

SpaceX already has delivered two loads of cargo to the International Space Station under its 12-flight, $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, and Orbital Sciences plans to complete its demonstration missions and begin fulfilling its eight-flight, $1.9 billion CRS contract this year. But Bolden cautioned that will change if sequestration continues.

"I'll have to renegotiate those contracts," he said. "We won't fly the number of missions that we have. Right now we're flying 20 commercial cargo missions to the International Space Station over the next five years for three-point-some-odd billion dollars, an incredible value to the nation. I can't carry that out under sequester."

And while the agency has been able to avoid furloughing civil servants in fiscal 2013, "in all probability I will have to furlough . . . I'm not telling anybody I can work a miracle. If we cannot get out from under sequester, all bets are off."

Bolden said a 2014 sequester would take the agency budget down to about $16.2 billion from $16.8 billion this year. Mikulski has proposed a 1% transfer authority within agencies to help smooth the impact of continued sequestration, but Bolden said it would not be enough.

[свернуть]

 

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_04_29_2013_p04-01-574140.xml
   
Чарльз Болден сказал, что продолжение секвестра бюджета НАСА в 2014 финансовом году вынудит агентство пересмотреть условия контрактов. В результате могут поплыть правее сроки запуска телескопа Джеймс Вебб, (запланировано на 2018 год), на первый запуск SLS (2017), и начало полетов астронавтов на МКС на коммерческом корабле (2017).

[Valerij]

WILL NASA CUT COMMERCIAL RESUPPLY SERVICES?
 

 
NASA Administrator Major General Charles Bolden says he will have to make cuts to NASA's "Commercial Resupply Services" contract, Aviation Week reports.

NASA has awarded CRS contracts to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corporation for 12 and 8 cargo missions, valuaed at $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively.

On April 25, General Bolden told the Senate Appropriations Committee, "I'll have to renegotiate those contracts. We won't fly the number of missions that we have. Right now we're flying 20 commercial cargo missions to the International Space Station over the next five years for three-point-some-odd billion dollars, an incredible value to the nation. I can't carry that out under sequester."

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It's hard to see how the proposed renegotiation would save money, however. The International Space Station needs a certain number of cargo flights to operate. There are some optional science experiments, but science aboard ISS is already severely restricted and it's hard to see how it could be cut much further.

Unless NASA takes drastic measures, such as mothballing ISS, cargo flights are not optional. If NASA reduces the number of flights purchased from SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, it will have to increase the number of cargo flights provided by foreign partners (chiefly Russia). Since Russian flights are more expensive, this move would cost money, rather than saving money. NASA often contracts with foreign partners to provide flights through barter agreements, however, rather than cash deals. That enables both parties to hide the true cost of the arrangement. This is a game NASA officials have played often in the past.

Making things even harder are members of the so-called "new space" community who are divorced from budget reality. At this month's Space Access Conference in Phoenix, James Muncy, president of the lobbying firm PoliSpace and co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, called for another big government space program, not to meet any specific purpose but merely to give the Space Launch System something to do. "SLS needs a destination," Muncy said. Dr. Phillip Chapman, who was sitting next to him, retorted, "The destination should be the scrap heap."

Dr. Chapman, who was one of the scientist-astronauts who trained but never flew during the Apollo program, is concerned not only with the growth of the Federal budget but also the effects of the Space Launch System, which would actually increase the cost of access of space. Chapman views cheap access to space as the key to all future space programs, both government and commercial, and sees the Space Launch System as a misguided step backward.

Such arguments did not sway everyone. Mr. Muncy explained that, as a lobbyist, he could not afford to take controversial positions against government programs since Congress would "take it out" on his other clients. Such political hostage taking is, of course, common in Washington and usually effective. As the old joke goes, "Profiles in Courage is a very thin book."

Courage will be necessary if America's space-policy problems are to be fixed, however, and that courage will have to come from outside the Beltway. Space policy is too important to be left to the wonks.

[свернуть]

http://www.citizensinspace.org/2013/04/will-nasa-cut-commercial-resupply-services/
 
А здесь есть кое-что о подковерной борьбе вокруг этого секвестра бюджета и выборе приоритетов НАСА. Кстати, Болден сказал, кроме всего прочего, что объем американских исследований на МКС, кроме всего прочего, ограничен возможностями доставки грузов на орбиту.

[LRV_75]

Valerij пишет: начало полетов астронавтов на МКС на коммерческом корабле (2017).

Интересно, в каком году НАСА решится заявить, что к МКС их ПК  летать не будут?