NEW YORK: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden presented the White House’s 2016 $18.5 billion budget request at an annual State of NASA presentation held today at the Kennedy Space Center.
The proposal calls for a $500 million increase over the space agency’s 2015 budget and places a clear priority on manned mission to Mars within the next 20 years and overall deep space exploration. It also calls for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa and an asteroid redirect mission (ARM). The latter is seen as a step toward manned Mars missions planned for the 2030s.
Speaking against a backdrop of three next generation space vehicles, an Orion capsule, a SpaceX Dragon, and a Boeing CST-100, Bolden affirmed, “NASA is firmly on a journey to Mars. Make no mistake; this journey will help guide and define our generation.”
The 2016 budget prioritizes deep space efforts, with the Orion capsule, planned to take manned crews to Mars and other deep space destinations given $1.1 billion in funding, and the Space Launch System (SLS) mega-rocket given $1.35 billion.
Proposed funding for both Orion and SLS is slightly below 2015 levels. The budget proposal could be bad news for the Mars Opportunity rover, which has been traversing the Martian surface for 11 years, and for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), launched into 2009 to search for water on the Moon’s surface and map that surface. Both missions are set to end next year, according to the budget proposal.
