HAMBURG, Germany — NASA is slowing down work on Mars Sample Return (MSR) amid uncertainty about its budget for next year and an ongoing review of alternative architectures for the program.
Speaking at a meeting of NASA’s Planetary Science Advisory Committee, or PAC, Nov. 13, Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator for science at NASA, said the agency directed three field centers working on MSR “to start ramping back on activities” related to that program.
That is driven in large part because of uncertainty about how much money MSR will receive when Congress completes its fiscal year 2024 appropriations bill. A House bill would provide $949.3 million, the full request by NASA, while a Senate version this summer would provide just $300 million, and included language directing NASA to descope or cancel MSR if its total cost exceeds $5.3 billion. A recent independent review concluded MSR will cost between $8 billion and $11 billion.
NASA is currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that funds programs at fiscal year 2023 levels, which for MSR is $822.3 million. The current CR expires Nov. 17, but another may extend that stopgap funding into early 2024. Connelly described the reductions in MSR work as a way to address a “worst-case scenario” where NASA receives only the funding in the Senate bill, months after the start of the fiscal year, and would need to sharply reduce work.
“It’s very unfortunate that we have to make this decision at this point. However, the intent is to enable sufficient funding to carry us throughout the year so we can continue working on and architecting this mission,” she said.
The letters went to the Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center, all working on different aspects of MSR. “It includes making reductions on contracts, ramping back where we can,” she said.
One element of MSR affected more than most is the Capture,…
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