Congress will pour billions more into the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and its associated architecture, even as NASA science missions remain vulnerable to cuts.
The House and Senate Appropriations Committees recommend that NASA should appropriate about $25 billion for the next fiscal year (FY 24), matching the amount of funding the agency received this year (FY 23) . However, both branches of Congress recommend increasing the portion of that funding that would go to the Artemis program and its transportation cornerstones, SLS and the Orion crew capsule.
These programs would receive $7.9 billion per House bill or $7.74 billion per Senate bill, an increase of about $440 million over fiscal year 2023 levels.
Meanwhile, science missions are considering cuts of about the same amount, with the House recommending a budget of $7.38 billion from $7.79 billion for fiscal year 2023.
The increased funding is just the latest sign that Congress isn’t backing down from the mission architecture of the Artemis program, which aims to get humans back to the moon by 2025. That plan hinges on the presence of a heavy rocket capable of giving enough boost to deliver a fully fueled and equipped capsule into lunar orbit. For this task, Congress designed SLS and Orion, programs built on NASA’s legacy and (apparently) economical for that reason.
But the move has drawn a lot of criticism, primarily for the incredible price of both programs — prices that will only rise as the program continues to expand. For example, the overall costs of SLS have exceeded $24 billion since the project’s conception in 2010. But because the rocket is not reusable, although it has a successful first flight last NovemberCongress will have to spend many more billions on each subsequent mission.
Not to mention the costs of Orion or the mobile launch tower from which SLS takes off.
In May, NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a devastating audit of the program, which revealed that delays in the SLS thruster and engine contracts resulted in a cost overrun of approximately $6 billion. The report further criticizes the use of cost-plus contracts, a fee structure whereby virtually all risk is assumed by the government.
Overall, NASA received $25.4 billion in FY23 funding, including $2.6 billion for SLS, $1.34 billion for Orion, and $1.48 for contract programs. of the human landing system. The science programs — which include the Mars Sample Return mission and Earth science missions — received $7.8 billion in total.
