14 DAY TRIAL // Two planetary exploration missions headed for Mars may have to go on without the participation of the American space agency, if analysts' predictions come true. They say that the budgets NASA gets for planetary exploration will receive deep cuts in fiscal year 2013.
US President Barack Obama's federal budget request for FY 2013 is scheduled to be released on Monday, February 13, but voices at the White House are already indicating that the space agency is yet again the target of budget cuts.
Since the global economic crisis has begun, in 2008, NASA funding has dropped steadily. However, this did not happen because no more money was available, but because military spending continuously increased. This puts Congress in a position where it needs to take money away from other sources.
NASA has been especially hard-hit by these measures, since it was one of the first federal agencies to get targeted by these measures. They are bound to continue throughout this year as well, and to have even more negative effects, Space reports.
If NASA gets even less money this year, then it will have to withdraw from the ExoMars mission, which it was to conduct in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA). The latter has already started talks with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos) to take NASA's place.
George Washington University professor emeritus John Logsdon, a space policy expert, says that ExoMars was supposed to launch an orbiter around Mars by 2016, and a new geology rover by 2018.
“NASA has, I think, already told ESA it's not going to be able to provide a launch vehicle in 2016. So that is going to cause a big international uproar on one dimension. And the planetary community in the US is going to be very unhappy about the fact that there's no money for major new planetary missions,” he says.
One possible explanation for why even flagship programs, such as Martian exploration will be affected by budget cuts, is that Congress puts a higher priority on finishing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) than launching a new Martian mission.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity are already at the Red Planet, and the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover Curiosity – another NASA flagship mission – is scheduled to join them this August.
On the other hand, the JWST is expected to cost over $8.8 billion, and this kind of money cannot be obtained easily. NASA received only $17.8 billion in the current fiscal year, a lot less than in 2007 and 2008, for example.