The budget request makes mention (without solid numbers) of continuing development of the Europa Clipper, set for launch in late 2024, and the Dragonfly rotorcraft, due to head to Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, in 2027. The launch vehicle stage adapter for SLS/Artemis I is loaded on the Pegasus barrage at the Marshall Spaceflight Center. The funding would go toward development of the Lunar Gateway, a lunar lander, and the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, now slated to make its inaugural uncrewed flight in November 2021. Under the proposal, the Artemis initiative alone would receive $6.9 billion, $325 million more than FY2021. NASA administrators did, however, highlight some key areas that the FY2022 request covers in detail. The recent omnibus budget request doesn’t yet give a program-by-program breakdown for funding, though that’s expected to be announced shortly. "But we are still very short on details, particularly at the program level for the sciences and for their plans on human lander development for Artemis." "It's a promising start, and the numbers they shared (in the request) all point in the right direction," says Casey Dreier (Planetary Society). The proposed increase comes at a crucial time, as the agency initiates missions to Europa and Titan, plans a first-ever sample return from Mars, continues crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS), and continues full steam ahead with the Artemis initiative to return humans to the Moon. “It also gives us the necessary resources to continue advancing America’s bipartisan Moon to Mars exploration plan, including landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon under the Artemis program.” “The president’s discretionary request increases NASA’s ability to better understand Earth and further monitor and predict the impacts of climate change,” said NASA acting administrator Steve Jurczyk in a recent press release. If enacted by Congress later this year, the NASA budget would represent a hefty $1.5 billion (6.3%) increase over the the space agency's current budget, the largest gain since 2017. Two notable parts of the proposal were $10.2 billion for the National Science Foundation and $24.7 billion for NASA. The Biden Administration revealed its $769 billion discretionary request for non-defense spending on Friday, April 9th for fiscal year 2022. Development for a lander will need to be a big part of any final NASA FY22 budget. An artist's conception of a crewed Artemis lander departing from the Moon.
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