Tag: Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission

Lunar Gateway’s Power & Propulsion Element Faces Cost Increases

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The power and propulsion element of NASA’s Gateway is a high-power, 50-kilowatt solar electric propulsion spacecraft – three times more powerful than current capabilities. (Credits: NASA)

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The first element of NASA’s lunar Gateway station will cost more than the original $375 million firm-fixed contract due to the way the space agency awarded the project to Maxar Technologies, according to a new assessment by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) also might not be able to achieve its goal of demonstrating an advanced Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) system in lunar orbit due to delays in the development of that technology, GAO found.

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House Appropriations Committee Sets NASA Spending at $19.5 Billion

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NASA astronaut Suni Williams exits a test version of the Orion spacecraft in the agency’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. The testing is helping NASA identify the best ways to efficiently get astronauts out of the spacecraft after deep space missions. (Credit: NASA)
NASA astronaut Suni Williams exits a test version of the Orion spacecraft in the agency’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab in Houston. The testing is helping NASA identify the best ways to efficiently get astronauts out of the spacecraft after deep space missions. (Credit: NASA)

The House Appropriations Committee is marking up a FY 2017 spending bill today that would boost NASA’s spending by $215 million to $19.5 billion dollars. The amount is roughly $500 million more than the $19 billion requested by the Obama Administration.

Appropriators have zeroed out money for NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), instead instructing the space agency to focus on lumar missions applicable to sending astronauts to Mars.

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