Extra Funds Needed To Launch On Time

Committed to plans to launch its next mission to Mars in 2009, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says that extra funding is necessary to meet the scheduled launch date.

Although NASA hasn’t stated just how much extra money it needs, the budget for the Mars Science Laboratory has already increased from the original cost of $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion. Hoping to garner support in Congress, NASA is also examining other missions to see if there are funds that can be shifted to the MSL.

The supplemental funding is needed to compensate for delays in the MSL's assembly schedule, caused by problems developing the motors that drive and steer the rover's wheels and operate its robotic arm, the BBC reports.

"Because of the mass of the MSL and its size, those are reasonably complex motors and they're difficult to produce," explained Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters. Approximately the size of a subcompact car and weighing in at nearly a ton, the MSL will be the biggest planetary rover NASA has produced.

Specialized tools needed to do experiments on the surface of Mars, such as a drill, also require specialized motors, and these are delayed, too. "The lack of those deliveries puts schedule pressure - which in turn puts budget pressure - on the system," McCuistion said.

If the MSL misses its 2009 launch date, it faces an expensive lengthy delay that is even more costly than the additional staffing and resources needed to keep the project on its current schedule, he said. Mars missions launch when Earth and Mars are favorably aligned, with the best opportunities occurring about every two years.

Too big to land using the bouncing bags employed on several recent Mars missions, the MSL would be dropped on to the surface of Mars by a rocket-powered "skycrane."

Carrying a small nuclear power pack sufficient to operate its systems for at least one Martian year, the MSL will perform biology experiments and continue the geology testing being conducted by the Mars Exploration Rovers on the planet today.

"This is a really important scientific mission," said McCuistion. "This is truly the push into the next decade for the Mars program and for the discovery of the potential for life on other planets. And it's an extremely critical mission to further the science goals of the agency."

Dr Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator for NASA's science mission directorate, added: "We've poured over a billion and a half dollars into this. The science is critical, it's a flagship mission in the Mars program, and as long as we think we have a good technical chance to make it, we're going to do what we have to do."

With the launch window extending from September 15 to October 4, 2009, the spacecraft carrying the MSL is slated to arrive at Mars nearly a year later, between July 10 and September 14, 2010.

FMI: www.nasa.gov