Mid-January produced a flurry of U. S. legislative activity in Washington D. C. that concluded late Friday with President Obama’s signature of a $1.1 trillion Omnibus appropriations act for 2014 that funds the federal spending through Sept. 30, including a sequester lifting $17.65 billion in spending for NASA.
Concerns over another near term U. S. government shutdown have eased as well.
The allotted $17.65 billion is just $70 million below the amount sought for NASA in 2014 by the White House, $1 billion more than approved by House appropriators in the early stages of the budgeting process during 2013, but $360 million less than agreed to by Senate appropriators.
The 2014 spending bill includes $4.11 billion for NASA’s human exploration initiatives, including the Space Launch System, the Orion crew capsule, Commercial Crew development and exploration research and development. Space operations, which include International Space Station activities, emerged with $3.78 billion for the period.
The space agency’s strategy calls for SLS and Orion development leading to an unpiloted Orion flight test in September atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket. The Orion/SLS combination would be paired for a joint unpiloted flight test in 2017. The first piloted flight test of the Orion/SLS combination is planned for 2021 and could deliver astronauts to lunar orbit for a rendezvous with a small asteroid captured and retrieved with NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission.
NASA’s Science directorate fared well in the Omnibus as well, receiving $5.15 billion or $134 million more than the White House request. Planetary sciences and astrophysics missions received more than requested by the White House, and the James Webb Space Telescope received $658.2 million, the amount requested and a total that promises to keep the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope on track for a late 2018 lift off.
The spending plan’s $696 million for the Commercial Crew Program initiative was the highest yet, though well below the $821 million that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has said will be needed to initiate commercial crew launches in 2017. Additionally, $171 million of the approved commercial crew amount awaits release until the completion of an independent cost/benefit analysis of the commercial crew strategy.
The U. S. has relied onRussiato launch crews to the space station since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet in 2011. The current cost to the U. S. is $70 million per passenger.
Those purchases would return to theU. S. if the commercial crew program succeeds, while allowing NASA to place more focus on future deep space exploration.
The space agency currently counts three CCP participants, Boeing, Sierra Nevada and SpaceX. NASA would like to see two competitors complete the CCP development program to mirror the recent successes of the agency’s commercial cargo initiative. Orbital Sciences and SpaceX are now delivering supplies to the space station on a commercial basis.