Space News by Jeff Foust — July 27, 2017
An appropriations bill approved by a Senate committee July 27 would restore funding for several NASA Earth science missions slated for termination by the administration as well as a satellite servicing program.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a commerce, justice and science (CJS) appropriations bill, along with two other spending bills, during a markup session. The CJS bill, offering $19.529 billion for NASA overall, had cleared its subcommittee July 25.
The bill and accompanying report, released after the markup, reveal significant differences between the Senate and both their House counterparts as well as the original White House request in several areas, including science and space technology.
The Senate bill provides $1.921 billion for NASA’s Earth science program, identical to what it received in fiscal year 2017. The White House’s proposal sought a cut of $167 million in the program, while the House deepened that cut by an additional $50 million.
The administration’s proposal sought to cancel four missions under development or in operation: the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, the Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory (CLARREO) Pathfinder and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 3 instruments for the International Space Station, and Earth-viewing instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). All four are specifically funded in the Senate report.
The Senate also supported a fifth project slated for termination, the Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI), with conditions. The Senate report states that NASA must report on whether RBI can be ready for inclusion on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) 2 spacecraft and stay within budget. If so, NASA can continue working on RBI using reprogrammed funding.
More:
http://spacenews.com/senate-restores-funding-for-nasa-earth-science-and-satellite-servicing-programs/
