View of WFIRST focusing on supernova SN1995E in NGC 2441. The high-priority but embattled space telescope would, if congressional support continues, add greatly to knowledge about dark energy and dark matter, supernovae, and exoplanets. (NASA)
A quick update on a recent column about whether our “golden age” of space science and discovery was in peril because of cost overruns and Trump administration budget priorities that emphasized human space travel over science.
The 2018 omnibus spending bill that was passed Wednesday night by the House of Representatives and Thursday night by the Senate represents a major push back against the administration’s earlier NASA budget proposals. Not only would the agency receive $1.6 billion more funding than proposed by the administration, but numerous projects that had been specifically eliminated in that proposal are back among the living.
They include four Earth science satellites, a lander to accompany the Europa Clipper mission to that potentially habitable moon and, perhaps most important, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) space telescope.
Funding for that mission, which was the top priority of the space science community and the National Academy of Sciences for the 2020s, was eliminated in the proposed 2019 Trump budget, but WFIRST received $150 million in the just-passed omnibus bill.
A report accompanying the omnibus bill is silent about the proposed cancellation and instructs NASA to provide to Congress in 60 days a cost estimate for the full life cycle of the mission, including any additions that might be needed. So there appears to be a strong congressional desire to see WFIRST launch and operate.
Still hanging fire is the fate of the James Webb Space Telescope, which has fallen behind schedule again and is in danger of crossing the $8 billion cap put into place by Congress in 2011. NASA officials said this week that they will soon announce their determination about whether a breach of the program’s cost cap will occur as a result of further delays.
NASA has a fleet of 18 Earth science missions in space, supported by aircraft, ships and ground observations. Together they have revolutionized understanding of the planet’s atmosphere, the oceans, the climate and weather. The Obama administration emphasized Earth studies, but the Trump administration has sought to eliminate future Earth missions. This visualization shows the NASA fleet in 2017, from low Earth orbit all the way out to the DSCOVR satellite taking in the million-mile view.
