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.