14 DAY TRIAL // On Monday, October 11, US President Barack Obama signed into law the new vision on space exploration that will guide the efforts of the United States in the coming decades.
The plan shifts its focus from exploring the Moon as a primary target to exploring near-Earth objects (NEO) by 2025, and reaching the surface of Mars with a manned crew by the late 2030s.
With the signing ceremony, the projects pertaining to the past directions in space exploration have been put on hiatus, or even shut down entirely.
One of the most affected endeavors is Project Constellation, the Bush-era initiative to place astronauts on the Moon by no later than 2020, using a new series of rockets and space capsules.
Parts of the Project included the ARES I, IV and V delivery systems, the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, the Altair lunar lander, and the Earth-Departure Stage orbital motor.
The new document, which has just been signed into law, gives NASA a budget of around $19 billion for fiscal year 2011, Space reports.
Tow of the main provisions in it is that it supports operations on the International Space Station (ISS) until at least 2020, while at the same time adding an new shuttle flight beyond the last planned one.
Endeavor was supposed to be the last orbiter to take off, and its STS-134 mission was scheduled for February 2011. Now, shuttle Atlantis has been approved for another flight, STS-135, which will most likely take place next June.
“Earlier today, President Obama signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010,” says NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
“It is important bipartisan legislation that charts a new course for space exploration, science, technology development, and aeronautics,” adds the official in a statement.
“We are grateful for the President's forward-thinking plan and the hard work members of Congress put into this framework that will guide us for the coming three years,” he goes on to say.
Bolden also praised the fact that the new bill allows for growth in the commercial space transportation industry. NASA will play an important role in fostering its development.
“We will foster a growing commercial space transportation industry that will allow NASA to focus our efforts on executing direction in the act to start work on a heavy-lift architecture to take astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and to develop a multipurpose crew vehicle for use with our new space launch systems,” he concludes.