NASA Might Get Its Biggest Budget in Decades

“The funds provided in this Act enable NASA to follow the fastest path to independence from Russian Federation by providing for continuing development of a domestic crew launching capability”, Congress said, in a report accompanying the spending bill.

One example where Congress exceeds NASA’s requests involves the deep-space rocket, the Space Launch System, and its Orion capsule and a long-term space habitat, all key components in NASA’s long-term priority to send astronauts to Mars in about 20 years.

The commercial crew program was scheduled to start launches in 2017, and the new funding should assure that schedule. We spoke about this earlier this year in an article by the name of Launch America: SpaceX, Boeing to taxi NASA astronauts to ISS. The budget includes $1.24 billion for commercial crew, which is the amount requested by the Obama administration, and marks the first instance of Congress matching the administration’s request for the program.

Before the compromise spending deal reached Wednesday, the GOP-controlled Congress seemed willing to go only as high as $1 billion. “The $19.3 billion provided in the bill includes funding for the ongoing activities of the International Space Station, important science research missions, and developing new technologies that, along with SLS, will inspire the next generation of explorers”.

Although long overdue – as the fiscal year began in October – the bill contains good news for USA space exploration, especially considering the agency’s sharp funding decreases since the heyday of moon missions.

“We are going back into space with Americans on American rockets, and we are going to Mars”, U.S. Sen.

“The spacecraft and its environmental testing are complete, and now the launch team is moving to California to perform final preparations for a March launch”, Lockheed Martin Space Systems InSight program manager Stu Spath said in the release. To put that in perspective, it’d mean an increase of $1.27 billion. That’s $70 million above fiscal 2015’s level and $174 million above the administration’s request. The Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), France’s space agency, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are each contributing a science instrument to the two-year scientific mission. Considering that 2016 has booked a full agenda for the US space agency.