Senate appropriators are offering just $300 million in funding for the Mars mission — less than a third of the $949 million budget request from NASA. If NASA cannot guarantee it can complete the mission for this amount, the Mars program faces cancellation.
The Senate is signaling deep skepticism about NASA’s ambitious plans to fetch samples of soil from the red planet, expressing concerns over the mission’s cost and viability.$300 million in funding for fiscal 2024 for the Mars mission — less than a third of the $949 million budget request from NASA.
“The Committee has significant concerns about the technical challenges facing MSR and potential further impacts on confirmed missions, even before MSR has completed preliminary design review,” the Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee wrote inIt further said it would rescind the $300 million allocated for the mission if the agency cannot guarantee that overall cost will not exceed $5.3 billion.
The samples in question have been collected by NASA’s newest Mars rover — Perseverance —which launched to Mars in 2020. The rover was dispatched to Mars to help find signs of life, and was tasked with scooping up samples of the Martian surface and subsurface. So far, Perseverance has collected 18 of 43 planned samples.
As NASA has been working on developing the technology needed for the mission, costs have ballooned. First estimates indicated the cost of this mission would be around $4 billion, but according to the committee’s report, the space agency has already spent more than $1 billion. The subcommittee also flagged that the planned 2028 launch date is very aggressive and likely to slip, increasing cost overruns.
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