Trump Administration Redirects NASA to Lunar Exploration Focus with $19.9 Billion Budget Proposal for FY 2019, Cancels WFIRST Astronomy Satellite

Artists concept of NASA’s proposed Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway for human crewed missions to deep space, targeting the first element launch in 2022. Credit: NASA

Ken Kremer  --   SpaceUpClose.com  --   13 Feb 2018

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL- The Trump Administration is charting a new course for NASA that redirects the space agency to focus on Lunar exploration as a near term goal and thereby extend a human presence into deep space that will eventually lead to missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond - as part of the key strategic announcement that President Trump is proposing in the Fiscal Year 2019 Budget request of $19.9 Billion. 

The proposed FY 2019 budget maintains funding for many high priority NASA programs currently underway such as the development of the new heavy lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew capsule for human missions to deep space, the Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Dragon commercial crew space taxis for human missions to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS) as well as robotic missions to Mars and Europa.  

The budget proposal calls for jump starting the Lunar initiative by building a mini space station in lunar orbit named the "Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.”  The first element - a power and propulsion module - would launch in 2022.   NASA will also begin developing a series of small robotic commercial lunar landers that eventually will lead to a human lunar lander.

In contrast, the future of the ISS and its world class science program is in serious doubt and the flagship class WFIRST (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope) astronomy science mission launching in the mid 2020s as a follow on to the JWST would be cancelled immediately.

The Fiscal Year 2019 Budget request of $19.9 Billion announced by NASA’s acting administrator Robert Lightfoot on Feb. 12 represents an increase of about $400 million over the 2018 budget. That amounts to barely a 2% increase over FY 2018.

“The President’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2019 released today provides $19.9 billion for NASA,” said Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s acting administrator, during the Feb. 12 ‘State of NASA’ speech at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, outlining the agency’s budget, strategy and priorities in the coming year and beyond.  Marshall is agency’s lead rocket development center.

 “It’s a $400 million increase in terms what we’ve had, that we’re working to right now as an agency. It reflects the Administration’s confidence that America will lead the way back to the Moon and take the next giant leap from where we made that first small step for humanity nearly 50 years ago.”

“This budget focuses NASA on its core exploration mission.”

The FY 2019 budget includes $10.5 Billion “to lead an innovative and sustainable campaign of exploration and lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations,” according to the accompanying NASA budget statement.

“We are once again on a path to return to the Moon with an eye toward Mars,” said Lightfoot.

The first combined launch of SLS and Orion on the unpiloted EM-1 mission will take place in 2020 from the Kennedy Space Center followed by the first crewed mission on EM-2 which will send American astronauts to the Moon in 2023.

 “The first integrated launch of the [SLS/Orion] system is in fiscal year 2020 around the Moon and a mission with crew in 2023,” said Lightfoot. 

EM-2 “will be the first human mission to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, and will establish U.S. leadership in cislunar space.”

Orion EM-1 crew module under construction at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is targeted to launch in FY 2020 atop first SLS rocket from Launch Complex-39A.  Credit: Ken Kremer/SpaceUpClose.com/kenkremer.com

Lightfoot also announced that NASA would build a mini space station orbiting the Moon named ‘Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway’ starting in 2022. 

“In lunar orbit around the Moon, we also will begin to build the in-space infrastructure for long-term exploration development of our nearest neighbor by launching the power and propulsion element in 2022 to orbit the Moon as the foundation of a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway,” Lightfoot stated.

The FY 2019 NASA budget proposal includes $504 million for the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway.

“This will give us a strategic presence in the lunar vicinity that will drive our activity with commercial and international partners and help us further explore the Moon and its resources and translate that experience toward human missions to Mars.”

The power and propulsion module would be launched on a commercial rocket rather that the SLS.

Earlier plans to launch it on SLS on EM-2 have changed, NASA CFO Andrew Hunter told Space UpClose. 

“The power and propulsion element is not on EM-2 because that’s going to be in 2023,” Hunter told me during a briefing with reporters after Lightfoot’s speech.  

“We actually want an earlier milestone on the power and propulsion element, and there’s a very good chance it will launch on a commercial launch vehicle, although we’ll probably look at SLS possibilities as well. It’s a timing issue. We want to actually get it launched earlier.”

The commercial rocket has not yet been chosen. 

In Nov 2017 NASA chose five U.S. companies to conduct four-month studies on the power and propulsion element. They are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK, Sierra Nevada Corp and Space Systems/Loral.

However the 2019 also reflects “hard decisions” forced on NASA because the Trump Administration is offering insufficient funding to continue other very high priority agency programs such as the ISS and the WFIRST astrophysics mission. 

For example President Trump is proposing to end all US support for the space station after 2024 and transition it somehow to commercial partners, read our accompanying story, and to outright cancel WFIRST.  

“We’ll ramp up efforts to transition low-Earth activities to the commercial sector and end direct federal government support of the International Space Station in 2025 and begin relying on commercial partners for our low Earth orbit research and technology demonstration requirements,” Lightfoot elaborated. 

Trump proposes to spend $150 million on unspecified studies on how to carry out the transition to the undefined privatized commercial station.

“To that end, this budget proposes a $150 million investment in 2019 to encourage the U.S. space industry development of capabilities for Low Earth Orbit either at the ISS or stand-alone that both the private sector and NASA can use.” 

NASA will also start to “develop a series of progressively more capable robotic lunar missions to the surface of the moon using innovative acquisition approaches while meeting national exploration and scientific objectives.”

“The Science Mission Directorate will lead the initial lunar exploration efforts in close coordination with the Human Exploration folks,’ Lightfoot elaborated. 

“The budget proposes $200M in 2019 to jump start scientific and lunar resource characterization efforts with small landers as our scouts followed by larger landers that can begin lunar surface mobility and sample return of lunar resources soon thereafter -- potentially through the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway.”  

The ISS enjoys strong bipartisan support and the Administration decision to halt funding will be fought by members of Congress from both parties.

In essence NASA is being asked to do too much with too little in the way of FY 2019 funding resources that refocuses NASA on human lunar exploration while ending federal support of science operations on the ISS and terminating the top priority WFIRST mission which was to follow up on the Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope.  

“We had to make some hard decisions as well in Science, and this budget proposes cancelling the WFIRST mission in astrophysics and redirects those resources to other Agency priorities,” explained Lightfoot.

WFIRST was the top priority of the last decadel survey in 2010. That means it was NASA’s most important astrophysics space telescope science project for the coming decade. Killing this mission is another terrible strike against science by the Trump Administration.

Trump has told NASA to stop all direct federal funding for the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024 – just over five years from now - and maybe turn it over to private industry to operate on a commercial basis or building something entirely new, according to the newly released Fiscal Year 2019 Budget request for the space agency.   

This extremely shortsighted directive with no real way forward could have disastrous consequences for US leadership in space and science.

The International Space Station (ISS) operates in Low Earth Orbit as a platform for science and a peaceful cooperative effort of five space agencies comprising 17 countries worldwide. Construction stated in 1998 and it has been continuously occupied since 2000 - as seen in 2011 after undocking of visiting Space Shuttle during STS-132 mission. Credit: NASA

Planetary science fared well in the FY 2019 budget with the newly proposed lunar landers as well as continued support for the Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper missions being built.

“Robotic exploration of the solar system continues strongly, with funding in this budget for the next Mars rover launch in 2020, funding to explore possibilities of returning samples from Mars, and a Europa Clipper mission to fly repeatedly by Jupiter’s icy ocean moon Europa.”

However there are no new planetary missions besides the lunar landers. For example the Europa lander is not funded

Lightfoot concluded his Feb. 12 Marshall speech by saying he sees a bright future ahead for NASA.

“While we had to make some tough decisions, as we always have to do, this 2019 budget sets the stage for an exciting decade of the 2020’s where we take our next giant leaps.”  

“Looking back from 2030 - SLS and Orion will be transporting crews routinely to the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, and they will be transiting to and from the lunar surface and preparing to move even further into deep space.”  

Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer - ken at kenkremer.com