The Senate Appropriations commerce, justice and science and related agencies (CJS) subcommittee Wednesday approved its version of a fiscal year 2016 spending bill that provides nearly $344 million less for Commercial Crew than NASA requested, according to a subcommittee statement.
The panel, overall, approved $18.3 billion for NASA, $229 million less than requested but $29 million more than enacted for FY ’15. The subcommittee also approved $1.9 billion for the Space Launch System (SLS), $544 million more than NASA requested and $200 million more than enacted last fiscal year. The panel is chaired by Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a supporter of SLS. Boeing [BA] is developing the SLS core stage, including its avionics, at its Huntsville, Ala., location. SLS is slated to be NASA’s deep space exploration vehicle.
Boeing spokeswoman Patricia Soloveichik said Wednesday in an email that the major portion of Boeing’s SLS workforce is in Huntsville, where the program is managed and avionics work is performed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. She said Boeing’s exploration launch systems division, also based in Huntsville, supports NASA on strategy and policy on space exploration programs procured by NASA Marshall.
The subcommittee approved $1.2 billion for the Orion crewed spacecraft that will ride atop SLS. The $1.2 billion is nearly $104 million more than NASA requested and is $6 million more than enacted last year. Orion is NASA’s crewed vehicle that will ride atop SLS. Lockheed Martin [LMT] is developing Orion.
The panel also approved $2.5 billion for ISS Crew and Cargo, which covers payments for the Cargo Resupply Services that uses commercial companies to deliver cargo and goods to the International Space Station (ISS) and payments to the Russian space agency Roscosmos to deliver United States astronauts to ISS. The $2.5 billion is $895 million more than NASA requested. Of the $2.5 billion, $378 million is for crew payments to Roscosmos. NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries said Tuesday that the agency is paying Russia $63 million per seat on Soyuz for FY ’16. Humphries said NASA contracted for six seats next fiscal year, a total of $376 million
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Orbital ATK [OA] are performing CRS missions. NASA is also in source selection for CRS-2 missions.
The subcommittee also approved $5.4 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the panel called $23 million more than enacted in FY ’15. The subcommittee did not break down line items for NOAA, which has a number of weather satellites.
The full Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) is slated to take up the CJS bill Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT.