The Biden administration is asking for $ 26 billion for NASA 2023 budget – an increase of $ 2.7 billion from the enacted 2021 budget – and includes $ 7.5 billion for the Artemis moon programan increase of $ 1.1 billion according to the agency will help keep the project on track lunar landing already in 2025.
Another $ 1.5 billion would go to the development of new Moon Landing System lunar scares acquired through competition after three initial Artemis landings with SpaceX vehicles, one without a ball and two carrying astronauts.
NASA
The budget request includes $ 1,042 million for International Space Station operations, recognizing extension of the mission until 2030and $ 1.642 billion for commercial crewed spacecraft built by SpaceX and Boeing and unmanned SpaceX Dragon and Northrop Grumman cargo ships offering supplies and equipment.
The request also includes $ 2.4 billion for Earth System Observatory satellites for more information on the impacts of climate change and $ 480 million for the development of a robotic lunar rover to investigate the alleged ice deposits in permanently shaded craters near the South Pole of the Moon.
Ice, if accessible, could one day provide a source of rocket, air, and water propulsion, reducing the cost and complexity of deep space exploration.
Further, the budget includes $ 822 million for the continued development of a sample return mission to Mars, an ambitious robotic flight to bring samples of Martian rock and soil to Earth; $ 482 million to work on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope; and $ 184 million for a new spacecraft to study the immediate aftermath of the big bang.
The president’s $ 26 billion request “is a significant increase over last year’s budget,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “In fact, it’s 8 percent higher than enacted federal spending levels. It’s the largest science application in NASA history.
“But greater than any number, statistic or fact is what this budget request represents. It is a signal of support for our missions in a new era of exploration and discovery … It will help our nation, it will help the It will address climate change and emphasize STEM education. “
NASA
But like all budget requests, their final destination depends on Congress. Thanks to a deadlock on the 2022 fiscal budget, the federal government is currently funded by interim spending measures called ongoing resolutions that effectively freeze spending at previously approved levels.
Margaret Schaus, NASA’s chief financial officer, warned that another one-year budget impasse would mark a major setback for the civilian space agency.
“NASA’s priorities are ambitious: tackling the global climate crisis, bringing the first woman and person of color to the moon, exploring the farthest reaches of our universe, and advancing sustainable American aviation, just to name a few “Some of them,” he wrote.
“It is crucial that Congress reach a bipartisan and bicameral agreement on funding for fiscal year 22. A continued one-year resolution would (leave) the agency without the funding needed to achieve our important goals on behalf of the nation “.
The launch of the budget comes at a particularly busy time for NASA.
The first Artemis moon rocket in the agency’s superheavy space launch system was unfolded on pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center on March 18 for a general countdown rehearsal and fuel test April 1-3 to pave the way for an inaugural flight in early June to propel a capsule of the crew ‘Unmanned Orion beyond the moon and back.
The first manned flight is scheduled for mid-2024 with the first piloted landing on the lunar surface sometime in 2025. The 2023 budget request includes $ 750 million for exploration system upgrades, including a new mobile launch gantry to support an even larger and more powerful version of the SLS needed for tracking flights.
Meanwhile, astronaut Mark Vande Hei, launched on the International Space Station on April 9 aboard a Russian spacecraft Soyuz, returns to Earth on Wednesday with a landing in Kazakhstan to close a 355-day stay in the space, the the longest flight of an American.
At the same time, Houston-based NASA and Axiom Space are preparing to launch the first four private astronauts in a commercial flight to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The launch from Platform 39A at the Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for April. 6, just after the SLS countdown test in the next block 39B.
The next launch of professional astronauts on the ISS, also aboard a Crew Dragon, is aimed at around 19 April. Then the return to Earth, in late April, of the four astronauts that the new crew is replacing.
And then the stage will be set for the long-awaited release of Artemis 1.
“Soon, we’ll be back on the moon like Artemis,” Nelson said. “We will learn to live and work in a hostile environment, and then we will reach Mars in the late 2030s. President Biden’s proposed $ 26 billion budget for NASA will begin to make that possible.”
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- moon
- Artemis program
- NASA
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