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Budget

A Closer Look At NASA's FY 2021 Budget

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
February 11, 2021
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A Closer Look At NASA's FY 2021 Budget

Final FY21 Appropriations: NASA, AIP
“Under its fiscal year 2021 appropriation, NASA’s budget is increasing 3% to $23.3 billion, with most of the additional funding allocated to its human exploration directorate. However, the increase falls short of the $25.2 billion the Trump administration had requested to support its goal of landing astronauts on the Moon in 2024.
The budget for NASA’s science directorate is increasing 1% to $7.22 billion. This figure excludes the $79 million budget of the Biological and Physical Sciences Division, which was transferred to the science directorate from the human exploration directorate last year. All major science missions will have funding needed to move ahead on schedule. In addition, Congress has given the Europa Clipper mission leeway to launch on a rocket other than the in-development Space Launch System, a move that NASA estimates will save more than $1.5 billion.
An explanatory statement accompanying Congress’ appropriations legislation provides funding and policy direction, and language from the House Appropriations Committee report conveys additional direction unless specifically negated in the final statement. The Senate Appropriations Committee did not formally submit its report, but language from a publicly released draft is incorporated in the explanatory statement.”

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7 responses to “A Closer Look At NASA's FY 2021 Budget”

  1. fcrary says:
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    It’s now official. At this week’s OPAG meeting, the Europa Clipper project scientist reported that Clipper will not launch on SLS. The project has been instructed by the Planetary Missions Program Office to stop working on the SLS launch option and NASA will select a commercial launch provider. It’s hard to see how any option other than a Falcon Heavy would be a viable choice, but they are going to do a competitive selection. The launch is now set for October, 2024, with a trajectory using a Mars and an Earth flyby, and will reach Jupiter in 2030.

    • TheBrett says:
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      Thank goodness. The flyby delay isn’t great, but better than that risking that it might spend five years (or more) sitting in a crate waiting for SLS to finally have a free rocket.

      It also saves a ton of money. The SLS was going to cost, what, $1.5 billion just for the launch? That’s like a whole other Flagship-level mission.

      • fcrary says:
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        The cost of a SLS launch is a wilderness of mirrors. I’ve seen credible numbers ranging from $0.5 billion to $2 billion. The low end is not including anything but marginal costs (i.e. not counting any of the fixed, annual costs of being able to produce and launch SLSs) and the high end includes everything split over an assumed launch rate, with amortized development costs added in as well.

        In any case, I don’t think the planetary science division would have been billed for the full cost. At one point (years ago), the SLS program was saying it wouldn’t cost planetary science more than a Delta IV Heavy. Which means planetary would have only eaten the marginal cost. But, regardless, I don’t think planetary science is likely to see much of those savings from switching from SLS. Maybe half a billion at most, i.e. the difference between the cost of a fully expended Falcon Heavy and the marginal cost for a SLS. But half a billion is still a Discovery mission, so that’s far from a trivial savings.

  2. TheBrett says:
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    Artemis is not doing the 2024 target anymore with that, but the rest of the budget is great news. I do kind of wish they were still angling for a “ready by 2024” goal for the nuclear stuff, so it can be more easily factored in mission planning for Artemis down the line.

  3. Nick K says:
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    Whenever funding comes in for the moon lander then NASA should be able to achieve the goal within 20 years. Unless someone else besides the government provides and funds it. If Space X is responsible then it could happen a lot sooner.

  4. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Its easy too say Biden supports the Artemis Moon mission, but unless its fully funded, including the lander, its just talk and wishful thinking.

    • kcowing says:
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      We’ll see – the 2024 date needs to be changed and unless there is a huge budget infusion, how they do it i.e. the architecture probably needs to change as well. It is still a little early- amiss pandemic and political turmoil – before they can rightfully be expected to get to this – but one would expect some significant decisions before Summer one way or another.