Trump budget aims to kick-start lunar exploration, cancels space telescope
The White House's $19.9 billion NASA budget outline released Monday would continue development of NASA's heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule and begin the deployment of a mini-space station around the moon as soon as 2022, but the proposal would cancel WFIRST, a flagship-class astronomy mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s.
From article, (The White House’s $19.9 billion NASA budget outline released Monday would continue development of NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule and begin the deployment of a mini-space station around the moon as soon as 2022, but the proposal would cancel WFIRST, a flagship-class astronomy mission planned for launch in the mid-2020s.
The funding request submitted to Congress on Monday calls for $10.5 billion in fiscal year 2019, which begins Oct. 1, to prepare for human exploration of the moon as a stepping stone toward eventual missions to Mars and deeper into the solar system.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate will draft their own budget for NASA and other federal agencies to send to the White House for President Trump’s signature, and there will likely be changes to the Trump administration’s proposal when the final budget is enacted.
Members of Congress from both parties have expressed concern with parts of the NASA budget request.
The budget proposal refocuses NASA on lunar exploration using the agency’s Space Launch System and Orion spaceship, two multibillion-dollar programs that could make their first unpiloted test flight together in 2020, several years later than originally intended.
NASA officials said there would be significant roles for commercial partners in the lunar exploration plan.
In 2022, a power and propulsion module could be launched aboard a commercial rocket to begin the construction of a space station named the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway. Employing solar-electric propulsion with plasma engines, the module was previously slated to launch on the NASA-owned Space Launch System.
Agency officials called the proposed space complex the Deep Space Gateway in past briefings.
The outline described by the White House and NASA officials Monday envisions commercially-developed lunar landers to ferry experiments, hardware, and eventually astronauts between the moon’s surface and the station in lunar orbit by the end of the 2020s.
“The budget request this year for FY19 is $19.9 billion,” said Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s acting administrator. “It’s a $400 million increase in terms what we’ve had, that we’re working to right now as an agency. It really reflects the administration’s confidence that America will lead the way back to the moon and take that next giant leap from where we made the first small steps for humanity some 50 years ago.”
Under the program unveiled by the White House last year, and explained in further detail in Monday’s budget request, NASA would still use the same SLS/Orion vehicles originally designed for the Constellation moon program and the Obama White House’s asteroid and Mars initiative. But instead of bypassing treks to the lunar surface in favor of Mars, NASA plans to tap commercial providers to develop and build landers that will explore the moon, first robotically, and then with crews.
NASA has spent some $23 billion on the SLS, Orion and ground system projects over approximately the last decade, with $15 billion of that expenditure coming since 2012, according to the agency’s inspector general.
Lightfoot called SLS and Orion the “critical backbone elements” for NASA’s future in human space exploration.
Multiple new commercial U.S. heavy-lift rockets could be flying by the time the Space Launch System debuts in 2020, including SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, which made its first successful test flight Feb. 6. Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket and ULA’s planned Vulcan launcher, both with less lift capability than the Falcon Heavy, are expected to fly for the first time as soon as 2020.
In its initial “Block 1” configuration, the expendable Space Launch System will be able to hurl more than 70 metric tons — 154,000 pounds — into low Earth orbit and more than 25 metric tons — 55,000 pounds — on a trajectory to the moon.
SpaceX says its Falcon Heavy can loft nearly 64 metric tons — more than 140,000 pounds — into low Earth orbit, sending up nearly as much cargo as an SLS flight at a fraction of the cost.
Lightfoot said the lunar exploration outline revealed Monday came out of a 45-day study ordered by the National Space Council, a committee of senior administration officials chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.
“In short, we are once again on a path to return to the moon, with an eye toward Mars,” Lightfoot said.
“Around the moon, in orbit, we’re going to place and begin the first steps of our in-space infrastructure,” Lightfoot said. “In that development, we’re going to launch the power and propulsion element for the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway that we’re going to put up. That’s planned to launch in 2022, and that’ll be the first piece that we’re going to have around the moon.
“Also, at the moon, we’re going to have a series of more capable landers,” Lightfoot said. “We’re going to start with small ones that will basically be our scouts, doing the resource prospecting, as I call it, to get ready to go and learn what we can from a scientific perspective, but also how it applies to humans, so you’ll see a series of landers going forward in this budget. That allows us to really start getting our feet wet with what it’s like to be on the moon.”
NASA could also issue contracts for the first small commercial lunar lander missions in the coming months, according to Hunter.
The landing craft will first be small in scale to test out descent technology. Subsequent landers will be larger and carry scientific payloads, rovers and other instrumentation to examine the resources available to crews on the lunar surface.
Finally, the commercial lander program could lead to a human-rated landing craft.
NASA’s science directorate will initially oversee the commercial moon lander program.
Without a major boost in NASA’s budget, the lunar program’s affordability assumes the space agency ends its direct funding of the International Space Station in 2025.
“Given competing priorities at NASA, and budget constraints, developing another large space telescope immediately after completing the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope is not a priority for the administration,” officials wrote in a budget summary postd on the White House website. “The budget proposes to terminate WFIRST and redirect existing funds to other priorities of the science community, including completed astrophysics missions and research.”
The proposed cancellation of WFIRST was “due to a size cost decision, and the notion that a very large flagship was not affordable at this time,” Hunter said.
Scientists expect WFIRST to find up to 20,000 exoplanets orbiting other stars, building on the planet-hunting capabilities of NASA’s Kepler telescope.
NASA has already spent around $300 million on WFIRST during the last few years.
Spergel called on astronomers and the public to try to get Congress to continue supporting WFIRST.
“Congress writes the budget,” he tweeted. “If the astronomy community and those who are interested in astronomy push back, we will be able to reverse the cuts in the astronomy budget. These cuts imperil not only WFIRST but any future major mission. Push back!”)
Me, "While it is exciting to see the first steps for our country to return to the Moon. Its still sad to wonder what WFIRST may have been able to discover. Maybe Congress can keep WFIRST funded. But if not, like I said, a lot of interesting things being mapped out for NASA, and Commercial Space in Human Space Flight."
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