Bill Nelson makes 1st State of NASA address after nearly $25 billion budget ask; announces 2 new Venus missions

Bill Nelson gave his first State of NASA address as its new administrator on Wednesday plotting out the agency’s plans to continue the Artemis program to return humans to the moon as well as new Earth-centric missions as part of the largest science budget ask it has ever made.

At the end of the 45-minute presentation, Nelson announced two new missions to Venus as part of NASA’s Discovery program, which allows for smaller planetary missions that aren’t part of NASA’s flagship ventures. Named Veritas and DaVinci+, the two missions aim to analyze the second planet from the sun’s atmosphere and geologic history.

“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said. “They will offer the entire science community the chance to investigate a planet we haven’t been to in more than 30 years.”

It was the only new information from what was mostly an overview of NASA’s existing human exploration missions, aeronautics research, space technology, science and mission support.

Nelson, who once flew on the space shuttle as an elected U.S. representative, served in the House and Senate until losing his seat to Rick Scott in 2018. He took on the top NASA position after the election of Joe Biden.

“I got a call from the president-elect right after the first of the year, and he wanted me to serve here,” Nelson said. “And it was a surprise because I had not sought this position. But when the president calls you, you know what you do. You click your heels, salute and say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

Nelson did elaborate on the newly green-lit Earth-science initiative, the Earth System Observatory: an array of five new satellite missions, the first of which will launch in January 2023.

The move is a shift from the priorities under the Trump administration that tried to remove funding from several missions tied to climate research, although Congress ended up funding them despite the presidential budget recommendations.

“We need these investments because storms are getting stronger and more destructive and if we want to mitigate climate change, we’ve got to measure it and that’s what NASA does,” Nelson said. “NASA designs, builds, launches all of those instruments in space to give us an unprecedented understanding of the Earth. It’s a 3-D holistic view from the bedrock to the atmosphere.”

That mission was among NASA’s highlighted efforts when the White House released its $6 trillion federal spending proposal to Congress including more than $24.8 billion for NASA. That’s more than a 6.5% increase over fiscal 2021′s nearly $23.3 billion.

“The Biden-Harris Administration’s fiscal year 2022 funding request is an investment in America’s future. Agency activities contribute to economies local and national, invest in the next generation through STEM education, and are essential to American leadership around the world,” Nelson said in a statement Friday. “This budget request is evidence that NASA’s missions contribute to the administration’s larger goals for America: addressing climate change, promoting equity, and driving economic growth.”

It includes the most ever set aside for science, with a proposed $7.9 billion. Among that total is support of the fall 2021 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and $2.25 billion for Earth science such as the Earth System Observatory.

NASA is also asking to continue growing its Deep Space Exploration Systems side of the budget, with an ask of nearly $6.8 billion, up from 2021′s $6.5 billion and 2020′s $6 billion.

That includes nearly $2.5 billion for the continued support of the Space Launch System to be used for upcoming Artemis missions to the moon. Among the funding is development of the larger Block 1B version of SLS for missions beyond Artemis III. It also includes more than $1.4 billion to finalize the Artemis II mission’s Orion capsule for delivery to Kennedy Space Center, and nearly $600 million for construction of a second Mobile Launcher at KSC.

“Soon — I mean like days — we’re starting to stack that massive core stage between its two boosters in the Vehicle Assembly Building at KSC,” Nelson said of the rocket to be used on Artemis I that could fly before the end of the year on a 28-day uncrewed flight to orbit the moon.

The crewed Artemis II mission that will also orbit the moon is slated for 2023 and then Artemis III aims to by 2024 land the first woman on the moon as part of a two-person crew to the lunar south pole. It would mark the first human steps on the moon since the Apollo missions ended in 1972. Future missions look to include the first person of color as well.

“Landing the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface as a part of Artemis is not a statement. It is an action,” Nelson said. “The United States must and will continue to lead the way globally not just in exploration, but also in equity.”

For that to work, NASA needs to continue work on the Human Landing System, which will ferry astronauts from the Orion capsule to the lunar surface and back.

About $1.2 billion in the next year, and $7 billion mapped out in the next four, are targeted for the HLS in the budget. The HLS contract for Artemis III was awarded to SpaceX earlier this year, which aims to use a lunar version of its in-development Starship vehicle.

Progress on the HLS, though, could be shifted because the two competitors that lost out to SpaceX — the team lead by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin as well as the company Dynetics — filed a complaint with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which could by Aug. 4 determine NASA needs to award a second HLS contract.

There are bills in Congress right now that look to procure up to $10 billion more for the HLS program, Nelson said, and those would be on top of the $7 billion needed over the next four years currently planned for in the budget.

“It has been in no uncertain terms expressed to me by members of both the House and the Senate that they want a competition for the remaining lander contracts that will occur over the course of the decade following the first demonstration flight which is thought to be in 2024,” Nelson said.

The 2024 target was set down by the Trump administration, and so far kept by Biden, but Nelson on Friday said that the Artemis III date could slip beyond.

“Space is hard. As you know, as you see the development of various space systems in the past, there have been delays,” Nelson said. “When you go further and further away from the Earth with new technologies, we have seen, historically, delays. Will they occur? I can’t answer that question. I know the goal is 2024, but I think we have to be brutally realistic that history would tell us because space development is so hard that there could be delays to that schedule for the first demonstration flight of landing humans and returning them safely to Earth.”

Closer to Earth, the budget calls for nearly $4 billion for continued space operations including maintaining presence on the International Space Station and supporting the Commercial Crew Program from partners SpaceX and Boeing. Part of that means the 2022 budget does not include any funds for flights to the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz rockets, something the agency had to rely on for nearly a decade after the end of the Space Shuttle program. NASA astronauts may still make trips on Soyuz, but now it will be part of a reciprocal agreement.

There is one NASA program that could be shut down in the proposed budget. That’s SOFIA, as in the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. The observatory is on a plane, a Boeing 747sp based out of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. The program made headlines back in 2016 when it detected atomic oxygen in the Martian atmosphere.

NASA says it’s the second-most expensive program in its astrophysics division, has completed its initial goals and could be sunset in favor of higher priority science.

“This FY 2022 budget, along with continued bipartisan support for NASA’s goals and missions, will empower NASA and the United States to lead humanity into the next era in exploration — an era in which government and the private sector partner to take us farther than ever before — to the moon, to Mars, and beyond — and to expand science, economic growth, and well-being here on Earth,” Nelson said.