A Senate panel is concerned NASA is shorting Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) modernization in favor of investment at Kennedy Space Center (KSC).
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s (SAC) commerce, justice, science and related agencies (CJS) subcommittee said in its report for its portion of the fiscal year 2015 appropriations bill it is providing $33.9 million for the 21st Century Space Launch Complex, $8 million more than asked for in President Barack Obama’s budget request. SAC said it is concerned about the ability of commercial space launch providers to plan for the future, given what it called the preponderance of funding that is dedicated from the 21st Century Space Launch Complex to the facilities at KSC as the program’s authorized purposes include projects at all NASA-owned launch facilities.
SAC directs any new commercial space flight infrastructure investment proposals for the 21st Century Space Launch Complex program take into account the cargo mission needs also demonstrated at Wallops. The committee said there are now growing capacity issues at Wallops that, if not resolved, could soon prevent the center from taking on small and large missions due to limitations associated with spacecraft processing and fueling facility and associated facilities that need to be addressed.
SAC said it is providing the additional funding to fill maintenance gaps at Wallops and further directs NASA to take into consideration the full potential of all NASA-owned launch complexes, which are Wallops and KSC. Kennedy is NASA’s primary launch complex while Wallops routinely conducts launches of suborbital and small orbital rockets. Orbital Sciences [ORB] is a routine user of Wallops for launches.
SAC approved $17.9 billion for NASA. The bill awaits full Senate debate.
The committee is also concerned that the FY ’15 budget request does not invest adequately in current or future missions, as reflected in proposed cuts and cancellations for top priority missions. NASA’s budget request had a combined reduction of $363.9 million for the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle. The committee allocated $1.2 billion for Orion and $1.7 billion for SLS.
SAC chided NASA, saying its requested amount of $1.38 billion for SLS, by NASA’s own cost and schedule standards, is not enough to deliver an initial test launch by the planned December 2017 date. The committee further said insufficient funding for SLS will lead to cost escalation and unnecessary schedule delays that will have to be addressed in future budget years. Boeing [BA] is the prime contractor for the SLS core stage, including avionics. The J-2X upper-stage engine is being developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne, a division of GenCorp [GY]. ATK [ATK] is developing the five-segment solid rocket boosters.
Senate appropriators provided $60 million more for earth science programs than requested, fulfilling SAC Chairman Barbara Mikulski’s (D-Md.) pledge to protect earth science programs. SAC set aside $1.83 billion for earth science programs. Mikulski said during NASA’s budget hearing she didn’t want earth science programs used as a “bank account” for other programs (Defense Daily, May 1).