The US government has proposed a NASA 2015 fiscal budget that is about 1% less than what Congress approved the year before at US$17.46bn. It sets out US$848m for commercial crew programmes to end the country’s reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets and…
The US government has proposed a NASA 2015 fiscal budget that is about 1% less than what Congress approved the year before at US$17.46bn.
It sets out US$848m for commercial crew programmes to end the country’s reliance on Russian Soyuz rockets and US$705m for space technology.
Although slightly below the size of last year’s funding, the total amount is roughly US$600m more than what the space agency received in 2013 because of the government shutdown and the sequestration budget cuts.
NASA administrator Charles Bolden said: “The president’s funding plan for America’s space programme reaffirms the path we are on, and will keep us moving forward – pushing farther in the solar system and leading the world in a new era of exploration.”
Through the government’s Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative, the agency has also been earmarked for a further one billion dollars in 2015, enabling it to reach US$18.4bn in total.
Elliot Pulham, chief executive of non-profit group Space Foundation, welcomed the proposals, particularly the support for the US commercial crew programme as he said Soyuz prices were set to rise. NASA currently pays its Russian counterpart Roscosmos around US$70m per seat to fly to the International Space Station, which under the current proposals would see its budget lines fully funded up to 2024.
“With NASA’s budget at a historic low as a percentage of the federal budget, we strongly support the US$18.4bn proposal as a bare minimum,” added Pulham.
But the space industry took a hit elsewhere in the fiscal 2015 budget, with the Pentagon scrapping plans for two Lockheed Martin satellites to help save US$2.1bn over the next five years.
They were the seventh and eight Advanced Extremely High Frequency birds that the manufacturer and been contracted for, and the Pentagon also decided to postpone work on two GPS III spacecraft because the existing constellation is lasting longer than expected.
Even still, the US defence budget for 2015 includes US$7.2bn for space-based programmes.
It earmarks US$1.4bn for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) programme, which includes the procurement of three launch vehicles.
The government entered into a firm fixed price contract in December 2013, locking in costs up to 2017 for 36 launches of Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets – including four heavy rockets – and their associated launch services.
