Twin NASA probes called Ebb and Flow will crash into the Moon next week after completing their Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission.

The two probes entered lunar orbit over New Year’s Eve 2011 and New Year’s Day 2012 and have been providing detailed data on the structure of the Moon’s interior ever since.   MIT’s Maria Zuber is principal investigator for the probes, part of NASA’s Discovery series of moderate cost space missions.   They were designed for 90 days of operations once in lunar orbit, which was extended for another 90 days, but the amount of fuel onboard now is running out.  NASA therefore will command them to impact the lunar surface at about 2:28 pm PT (5:28 pm ET) on December 17.

NASA will hold a media teleconference on December 13 at 10:30 am PT (1:30 pm ET) to discuss the mission. The media teleconference will be streamed live at NASA’s news audio channel.

Senator Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) surprise announcement that he is leaving the Senate to run a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, could impact NASA and NOAA by opening up the top Republican spot on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchsion (R-TX), who is currently the top Republican (or “ranking member”) on that committee, is retiring at the end of the year.  Based on seniority, DeMint was in line to replace her.   That committee sets policy and recommends funding for NASA and Hutchison has big shoes to fill in the NASA policy arena.   She and Senator Blll Nelson (D-FL), who chairs the subcommittee on science and space, have worked closely together for the past several years.  They partnered in writing the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, for example.  She has diligently insisted that NASA follow the intent of the law by funding the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft in accordance with the Act’s directions rather than favoring President Obama’s commercial crew initiative.  

Senate committee assignments generally follow seniority rules, and DeMint was next in line.  Elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving three terms in the House, he was reelected in 2010 and is closely associated with the Tea Party, which made major gains in Congress that year.    The Republican governor of South Carolina will appoint his successor.  She already has vowed to choose someone with the same conservative political philosophy.

It was not clear what impact he might have on space policy.   It is not one of the topics on which he focused his Senate career.  One of his passions is cutting government spending, which might not have boded well for space programs.

With his departure, Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) becomes the heir apparent.   That does not mean he will take the job — he may prefer other committee assignments — but if he does, he would at least have some constituent interest in the space program.   Mississippi is home to Stennis Space Center and a fellow Republican Mississippian, Rep. Steve Palazzo, chairs the space and aeronautics subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

The Senate Commerce Committee undoubtedly will continue its oversight of NASA programs, as well as NOAA’s, in the next Congress, but whether it will try to pass related legislation is an open question.   The 2010 NASA Authorization Act recommended funding levels for NASA through the end of FY2013, the current fiscal year.   Many assume that a new authorization bill will be drafted next year to authorize funds for FY2014 and perhaps beyond with the Senate Commerce Committee a key player once again.  However, if Congress is satisfied with the policy aspects of the existing Act – which remain law permanently unless repealed or modified by a new law– it could forego funding recommendations and leave the money aspects to the appropriations committees, which actually provide the funding to agencies.

The bottom line is that it too early to tell what difference DeMint’s departure will make for space programs, but it is worth watching.

An ambitious congressionally-mandated study of NASA’s strategic plans and ability to achieve them, released today, describes a grim state of affairs that, if not corrected, threaten U.S. continued leadership in space.

In NASA’s Strategic Direction and the Need for a National Consensus, the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on NASA’s Strategic Direction responded to a congressional mandate in the FY2012 Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations act to assess the evolution and relevance of NASA’s goals, objectives and strategies and the agency’s ability – in terms of organizational and budgetary resources – to achieve them. It is of note that “the committee was not asked to opine on what should be NASA’s goals, objectives, and strategy,” as the NRC report states.

The committee, chaired by the University of California’s Albert Carnesale, concludes that  “there is no national consensus on strategic goals and objectives for NASA.” This comes as no surprise to many in the space community and neither does the fact that the report highlights persisting program instability, uncertainty in the agency’s future goals or a dramatic limitation of funds as key drivers for this situation. What is surprising, instead, is the conclusiveness with which it states that the current state of affairs is unique and particularly threatening to the future success not only of the agency, but also of the U.S. space program as a whole.

According to the report, the agency is “at a transition point in its history” and faces “a set of circumstances that it has not faced in combination before.” In fact, in the committee’s assessment, this combination of issues such as the perception of unreliability abroad and an aging infrastructure, could lead to the erosion of U.S. leadership in every element of NASA’s portfolio, including in Earth and space science and aeronautics.

The committee finds that: “If the United States is to continue to maintain international leadership in space, it must have a steady, bold, scientifically justifiable space program in which other countries want to participate, and, moreover, it must behave as a reliable partner.”

Noting the absence of a national consensus and a lack of evidence that a human mission to an asteroid “has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA’s own workforce, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community,” the committee recommends that the Administration take the lead in forging a new consensus, one that engages international partners, and that the agency establish a new strategic plan to achieve it. It also recommends that future plans and legislative funding actions take steps to eliminate the current mismatch between the agency’s budget and its portfolio of programs, facilities and staff. While not endorsing any specific solution, the committee describes four dramatic courses of action that U.S. leadership could take to address this mismatch.

It is yet early to tell what reception this report will have on Capitol Hill and with an Administration preparing to begin its second term.  But to judge by the findings and recommendations contained in this report, the decisions made in the next several months may lead to dramatic changes in the U.S. space program.

Note:  SpacePolicyOnline.com editor Marcia Smith was a member of this committee.

The Space Foundation wants the law that created NASA to be amended to make “pioneering” the agency’s primary purpose.  That is one of a lengthy list of recommendations the Colorado-based nonprofit advocate for the space industry issued yesterday.

Its report, PIONEERING: Sustaining U.S. Leadership in Space, argues that pioneering should be the “single, compelling purpose” for NASA and any activity that does not fit its definition of that word should be transferred elsewhere.    It defines pioneering as being among those who first enter a region to open it for use and development by others, and being one of a group that builds and prepares infrastructure precursors, in advance of others. The report then lays out a four-phase “pioneering doctrine” of access, exploration, utilization and transition.

The report contains detailed recommendations on how to amend the 1958 National Aeronautics and Space Act that created NASA.  The Act has been amended many times over the decades, in some cases adding new missions for the agency such as research and development of ground propulsion, bioengineering, solar heating and cooling, and manufacturing technologies.  The Space Foundation wants all of those eliminated.   It also wants to “realign the national civil space enterprise” by shifting some of NASA’s work to other agencies or the private sector.  “Although research functions such as aviation safety and automotive propulsion destabilize NASA’s organizational focus, they may fit quite well under a different agency,” the report says, for example. 

The Space Foundation calls for the NASA administrator to be appointed to a 5-year term (half that proposed by Rep. John Culberson and Frank Wolf in the Space Leadership Preservation Act, H.R. 6491) and be the person to nominate the Deputy Administrator for the White House then to propose for Senate confirmation.   Currently the White House decides who to nominate for both Administrator and Deputy Administrator.  The report calls for NASA to develop both 10-year and 30-year plans submitted for congressional approval every 5 years that Congress would use to evaluate NASA’s performance “following validation by a congressional commission” that would be chaired by the NASA Administrator.   The report does not make clear how having the head of NASA chair a commission to validate plans his own agency prepared would assist Congress in evaluating the agency’s performance.

Those are just a few of the many recommendations in the report.  The Space Foundation concludes that “Although our recommendations go against the status quo, we believe them to be reasonable and straightforward.”

NASA announced today that it has White House approval for a new Mars rover mission to be launched in 2020.  John Grunsfeld, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said the $1.5 billion mission can be accommodated within the Obama Administration’s existing funding profile for robotic Mars exploration.

NASA’s plans for robotic Mars exploration have been headline news in the space community since the Obama Administration released its FY2013 budget request, which cut Mars funding by 20 percent while the rest of the space and earth science budget remained relatively flat.  Consequently, NASA withdrew from cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) on a series of Mars missions that were intended to lead to returning samples of Mars to Earth.   NASA-ESA cooperation on two missions to Mars in 2016 and 2018 collectively referred to as ExoMars was the casualty.   ESA subsequently reached agreement with Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, to replace NASA as its partner on the ExoMars missions, although NASA will still participate in a much more limited role.

At the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco today, Grunsfeld excitedly announced what he called the new plan for robotic Mars exploration, which adds a new NASA mission to land another rover on Mars in 2020.

NASA currently has two functioning rovers on Mars — Opportunity, which landed in 2003, and Curiosity, which landed in August 2012, and two functioning orbiters — Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which reached Mars in 2001 and 2006 respectively,  ESA’s Mars Express has been in orbit since 2003.

Grunsfeld laid out the plan for future U.S. and international Mars exploration as follows:   NASA’s MAVEN mission scheduled for launch in 2013 to analyze the Martian atmosphere; NASA’s new InSight mission in 2016; ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter mission also in 2016; ESA’s ExoMars mission in 2018 (ESA’s 2016 and 2018 missions are usually referred to collectively as the “ExoMars missions”); and now a new NASA rover to be launched in 2020.

The 2020 NASA rover would cost $1.5 billion (in FY2015 dollars) including launch costs, Grunsfeld said at a press conference today.   It would use spare parts from the Curiosity mission as much as possible, he said.   Curiosity cost $2.5 billion, compared to its original estimate of $1.6 billion, and its launch was delayed for two years because of technical concerns.  The excitement over its successful landing after “seven minutes of terror” because of its cutting-edge landing system and its explorations to date seem to have erased any concerns about its cost overruns and schedule delay.

NASA will establish a Science Definition Team to decide what instruments are needed on the 2020 rover.   Probes can be launched to Mars every 26 months based on when the two planets are correctly aligned.  Some of those “windows” are better than others in terms of how much energy (i.e., propellant) is needed to get there.  One of the best windows is 2018 and Grunsfeld said that he was striving to launch a mission that year to take advantage of the opportunity, but budgets would not allow the launch of a rover that year, only an orbiter.  He became convinced it was better to wait for another two years, to 2020, so that a rover could be launched because the “action now is on the surface.”

NASA and most other government agencies often clash with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has the task of matching agency budget requests with overall government spending priorities.  Grunsfeld gave OMB a rare compliment today, saying that he has “nothing but the kindest words to say” about OMB as well as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that sets policy.

While Grunsfeld’s announcement clearly was good news for the U.S. Mars community, it opened questions about the future of other NASA solar system exploration aspirations and about U.S. international space cooperation.   Mars is a fascinating destination that has “a special place,” Grunsfeld said, but other space scientists are anxious to explore other destinations, such as moons around other planets that may harbor life such as Saturn’s moon Titan or Jupiter’s moon Europa.   As for international cooperation, ESA is still scrambling to find the money to fund the 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, even though the ESA ministerial council approved the revamped scheme to replace NASA with Roscosmos as the primary partner.  NASA still plans to contribute a communications payload to ESA’s 2016 mission, officially known as the Trace Gas Orbiter, and an instrument for ESA’s 2018 ExoMars mission, but it is far less than ESA expected and the sudden announcement of a new NASA mission begs the question of why NASA could not have found a way to maintain its agreement with ESA.

When NASA’s FY2013 budget request with its 20% cut to Mars exploration was released, leading to NASA’s withdrawal from broader cooperation with ESA, one explanation was that OMB was unwilling to sign up to the muiti-mission multi-year commitment of missions that ExoMars envisioned that involved collecting and storing (“caching”) samples of Mars for later return to Earth for analysis.  Grunsfeld said today that the Science Definition Team for the new 2020 rover would would look at the issue of caching.

The February announcement of the 20% cut was met with great dismay in U.S. space policy circles.   NASA’s announcement today that, never mind, everything is OK and we have a new rover mission in 2020, was surprising.  The first announcement was at an AGU “Town Hall” meeting during the day, with a later press conference.   Alan Boyle reported for NBC that the reaction at the Town Hall meeting was “deeply mixed.”  He quoted a tweet from Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the Carnegie Institution of Washington as saying “NASA town meeting audience is quiet.  I think we are all in shock.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) who represents the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which built Curiosity and is operated by the California Institute of Technology for NASA, applauded the announcement, but said he would fight to accelerate the launch to the 2018 opportunity.  Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), who represents an adjacent district, also praised the decision.

The House Science, Space and Technology Committee announced the revised date for its hearing on NASA’s strategic vision.  The hearing, originally scheduled for December 6, will now take place on December 12.

The committee also announced the witnesses for the hearing:

• The Honorable Robert Walker, Wexler & Walker
• Maj. Gen. Ronald Sega, USAF (Ret), Vice Chair, National Research Council Committee on NASA’s Strategic Direction
• Ms. Marion C. Blakey, President & CEO, Aerospace Industries Association
• Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen Ph.D, Associate Professor, Space Physics Research Laboratory, University of Michigan
• Dr. Scott Pace, Ph.D, Director, Space Policy Institute, The George Washington University

The hearing starts at 9:30 am ET in 2318 Rayburn House Office Building.