National Aeronautics & Space Administration: Support for new spacecraft, but questions about asteroid mission

Congress provides a $781 million increase above the fiscal 2013 postsequester budget for the National Aeronautics & Space Administration. This influx brings the agency’s 2014 budget to $17.6 billion, which lawmakers say will allow NASA to preserve a balanced investment portfolio of science, aeronautics, technology, and human spaceflight.

The 2014 budget set in the omnibus law is below the 2012 budget of $17.8 billion, however. This lower level is in part because funding for the space shuttle program was closed out in 2013.

Within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the omnibus law provides $80 million in funding for a Europa Jupiter System Mission—something that was not included in the Administration’s budget request. For human spaceflight, Congress provides funds to continue development of a next-generation spaceflight system as well as to support the agency’s commercial spaceflight program.

The report accompanying the omnibus law raises questions about NASA’s proposed asteroid mission. It calls on NASA to provide Congress with detailed cost estimates or impacts to ongoing missions before lawmakers will provide long-term funding of the mission.