NASA budget cuts human exploration, increases CubeSat, R&D dollars
NewsMarch 31, 2016
WASHINGTON. The Obama Administration?s Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget request for NASA cuts into human space flight funding while tripling finding for CubeSat, increasing investment in earth sciences, research and development (R&D). The overall budget request of $19 billion is down about $300,000 from FY 2016. Below are some highlights.
Human Space Exploration and Operations
The total budget for Exploration is $3.337 billion, down nearly $700,000 from FY 2016 enacted number of $4.030 billion. Looking to the right on the budget, this total is slated to increase each year till it reaches $4.262 billion in 2021. Within Exploration funding for the Orion program – the replacement for the now retired Space Shuttle program – is at $1.120 billion for FY 2017 down from $1.270 billion in FY 2016. This is expected to remain around this number through 2021.
Under Space Operations, funding requested for operating the International Space Station (ISS) in FY 2017 is at $1.431 billion and will decrease slightly each year through 2021. NASA officials say they will continue commercial development of U.S. crew transportation systems to be certified to support the ISS by the end of 2017, eliminating the need to pay Russia for crew transport services.
Regarding Space Transportation, Commercial crew funding is at $1.185 billion for FY 2017 and Crew and Cargo at $1.573 billion.
R&D and Small Sats
Space Technology gets a boost in the FY 2017 request, up about $140 million to $827 million. Included under this is $579 million for R&D and $213 million for Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR).
In addition to the increase for CubeSat funding to $10 million, about $30 million in funding is slated for the Small Satellite Constellation initiative to investigate the use of small satellite constellations to observe the Earth. The NASA FY 2017 request also increases funding for the Small Spacecraft Technologies program by about 50 percent.
Earth and Planetary Science
Fundign requested for Science overall in FY 2017 request is a t $5.600 billion, up slightly from FY 2016 enacted total of $5.589 billion and slated to rise to about $5.700 billion by FY 2021. Funding for Earth Science is at $2.032 billion for FY 2017 and should remain relatively flat through FY 2021.
Under Earth Science funding for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission program is funded at $68.5 million for FY 2017 and rising steadily to $100 million by FY 2021. NISAR is a dual frequency (L- and S-band) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), according to NASA. Data collected by the NISAR satellite will reveal information about the evolution and state of Earth’s crust and climate, as well as aid future resource and hazard management.
Planetary Science funding requested for FY 2017 is $1.519 billion, rising to $1.626 billion in FY 2017. Within this budget section, the Mars Exploration is funded at $585 million dropping till it reaches $280 million in FY 2021. The Jupiter Europa mission also is seeing reduced funding at $50 million, then dropping to $24 million in FY 2018 before rising again through FY 2021.
Funding for the James Webb Space Telescope is down slightly from FY 2016 total of $620 million to $570 million for FY 2017 and will steadily decrease through FY 2021.
Aerospace Research & New Aviation Horizons program
With the FY 2017 request NASA is launching a new program called New Aviation Horizons (NAH), which will be a series of experimental aircraft and systems demonstrations. Related budget lines include the 21st Century Clean Transportation Plan, which has $100 million slated for FY 2017 and jumps up to $1.900 billion by FY 201.
Under this plan, four budget lines stand out with each getting modest funding in FY 2017. They are:
- Aerospace Operations and Safey Program: $18 million in FY 2017, $170 million by FY 2021
- Advanced Air Vehicles Program: $30 million in FY 2017, $305 million by FY 2021
- Integrated Aviation Systems Program: $37 million in FY 2017, $1.170 billion by FY 2021
- Transformative Aero Concepts Program: #15 million in FY 2017, $255 million by FY 2021
Also under New Horizons, NASA awarded a contract for a preliminary design of a “low boom” flight demonstration aircraft, to be the first in a series of ‘X-planes’ under this program. FY 2017 funding for this aircraft program is $55 million. For more on this concept aircraft, read “NASA supersonic passenger aircraft concept contract won by Lockheed Martin.”
For more on the NASA FY 2017 budget request, click here.
