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NASA Gets Extra $1.6 Billion “Down Payment” to Reach the Moon in 2024

After unexpectedly being pushed into a corner in late March by the American administration's call to reach the Moon four years sooner than planned, NASA scrambled to see if it has the resources to achieve that.
NASA get financial boost to go back to the Moon in 2024 1 photo
Photo: NASA
And judging by its reaction to president Trump’s amended budget request for the fiscal year 2020 released this week, it seems it barely did.

On Monday, the space agency announced a $1.6 billion budget amendment to the initial request, one that would bring the total amount of money NASA is to receive to $22.6 billion. Enough of a “downpayment,” should the request be approved, to fund most of the plans the agency has for the future.

“This additional investment is a down payment on NASA’s efforts to land humans on the Moon by 2024 and is required to achieve that bold objective. It’s the boost NASA needs to move forward with design, development and exploration,” NASA’s administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a video released for the agency’s employees.

The extra money requested for the fiscal year 2020 will allow the Americans to complete work of several crucial projects meant for lunar exploration and later for a mission to Mars.

Of the $1.6 billion, $1 billion will go into a Human Lunar Landing System, but not exactly in the development of one. NASA will literally “purchase an integrated commercial lunar lander that will transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back. “

$651 million are to be used for further developing the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft, $132 million will be used for “exploration technologies like solar electric propulsion and a demonstration converting polar ice to water,” and $90 million “to enable increased robotic exploration of the Moon’s polar regions.”

NASA was planning to return to the Moon sometime in 2028, but those plans were scrapped after vice president Mike Pence's speech during a a meeting at the National Space Council in March.

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 Download: NASA’s FY 2020 Budget Amendment Summary (PDF)

About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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