The budget for Commerce, Justice, Science, and related agencies will be released by the US House of Representatives this week. The House proposes to give NASA 25.446 billion, which is more than what the agency received this year but less than what it wanted.
Ars obtained a copy of the budget plan in advance of its release. The House and Senate need to reconcile their budgets before the Senate does. The new fiscal year begins on October 1, 2022. The document has now been made public.
The preliminary document gives some idea of lawmaker priorities. The Artemis Program to land humans on the Moon is supported by the House budget writers.
The House would provide $7.32 billion for "Deep Space Exploration Systems" which includes full funding of the amounts requested by NASA.
"In the coming months, NASA will launch Artemis I and begin a new era in human space exploration, and the Committee provides significant resources to ensure that this new chapter is a success," the document says.
Lawmakers weren't happy when NASA chose to use the Human Landing System (HLS) from SpaceX for the lunar landers. If Congress appropriated more funding, NASA will choose another competitor to build a lander. The amount of money the House would give to NASA for the next fiscal year is more than the agency's request.
"The Committee applauds NASA's efforts to ensure competition among potential providers for a future sustained HLS services capability and expects that NASA, through the Sustaining lunar Development program, will commit significant resources to develop multiple HLS systems for use in the Artemis program once additional contracts are awarded," the
AdvertisementA mission to detect near- Earth asteroids is one of the modifications made by the document. During a House Science Committee hearing on planetary defense earlier this year, lawmakers expressed their displeasure with NASA's decision to delay the launch of the telescope. There is a chance that an asteroid will hit the planet one day.
$55 million above NASA's request is what the House wants to give to the NEO Surveyor.
The budget document states that the Committee is concerned by the agency's proposal to delay a high priority of the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. As part of its fiscal year 2024 budget request, the Committee directed NASA to provide a timetable for a NEO Surveyor launch before the year's end.
The Mars Sample Return plans were the subject of suggestions for NASA by the House committee.
The European Space Agency is working with NASA on a multi-billion dollar mission. The committee suggested that the space agency use more than one Ingenuity-class Mars helicopter. The document states that the Ingenuity helicopter design could be augmented to add a sample retrieving capability.
Ingenuity has been a great success on the surface of Mars. It's not clear how NASA could add more than one helicopter to its Mars Sample Return plans.
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