Budget cuts at NASA could kill Opportunity, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Theres tough news ahead for fans of NASAs plucky Opportunity Rover or the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The most reason budget proposed by President Obama nukes both ongoing missions, zeroing out their budgets. If the budgets pass as written, NASA would either have to find funds to continue the projects from discretionary funds (if thats even an option), or wind them both down and conclude the probes respective missions.

Both the LRO and Opportunity have their respective advocates and backers. Paul Spudis, a space scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston told Space.com that hed like to see the satellite reactivate its bistatic radar. Currently that instrument isnt being operated due to budgetary shortfalls, but the radar is capable of scanning the moons surface to measure the location and amount of ice in various crater pockets across the moon. Such information would be of significant practical benefit. Any serious plan for a long-term habitable moon base would make use of lunar ice for drinking and for plant growth.

The LRO has shot high-definition photos of the original Apollo 11 landing site

Meanwhile, on the Red Planet, Opportunitys operators just finished resetting the rovers flash memory. For the past few months, Opportunity has been operating with no flash memory at all, meaning it transmitted data as the data was generated. Bringing the rover back to full operating potential increases its ability to perform scientific observations and carry out experiments.

A map of Mars rover Opportunitys progress, from January 2004 to July 2014

According to Steve Squyres, Opportunitys principal investigator at Cornell, a recent NASA review of all Mars-based projects for cost-effectiveness and scientific potential per dollar of expenditure actually put the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Opportunity in first place for the most effective use of funds per expected scientific gain beating out the larger, more complicated Curiosity rover thats stolen much of the limelight since arriving on Mars in 2011.

The uncertainty swirling around both the LRO and Opportunity is an example of how the short-term goals of politicians can interfere with long-term scientific goals. Both satellite and rover can be used to gather information thats vital to any long-term base-building or colony effort. When you consider the expense of building, testing, and launching a space mission (not to mention the high overall risk of failure), most of the cost of both the LRO and Opportunity has already occurred. Its far more economical to find new ways to use existing equipment than to launch new hardware.

If the US is serious about returning to the moon or flying a manned mission to Mars, were going to have to do the scientific work on the front-end and fund the development of crew vehicles, habitat design, and the Space Launch System. Even if the US simply wanted to handle astronaut training and partner with a company like SpaceX for the actual vehicle, none of that companys current launch systems even the Falcon Heavy have anything like the Space Launch System Block 2s lift capability (currently planned at 52,000kg to trans-lunar injection, compared to 13,200 for Falcon Heavy).

NASA will make its final budget determinations and decide on the fate of these programs by the summer. The organization hopes to find funds to keep Opportunity rolling and the LRO mapping.

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Budget cuts at NASA could kill Opportunity, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter