TOKYO – A bipartisan NASA act would formally authorize several ongoing programs while directing the agency to provide reports on topics ranging from the use of the Space Launch System to servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
House Science Committee leadership released the NASA Reauthorization Act of 2024 on July 9, a day before the full committee formally marks up the bill and sends it to the full House.
The bill would formally authorize $25.225 billion in funding for NASA in fiscal year 2025, a figure between the administration’s request of $25.384 billion and the $25.179 billion included in a bill approved by the House Appropriations Committee on July 9. The main purpose of the bill, however, is to address a wide range of NASA programs and policies.
“It provides comprehensive support for important advances in human space exploration, prioritizing our ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond,” said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chairman of the full committee, in a statement. “The Act also addresses near-term priorities, including the critical operations of the International Space Station and the continued development of scientific research and innovative technology.”
Lucas is introducing the bill with the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), along with the chairman and ranking member of the space subcommittee, representatives Brian Babin (R-Texas) and Eric Sorensen (D-Ill .), which is likely to smooth its passage. That contrasts with a trade space policy bill that the committee approved in November along party lines. This bill has yet to be approved by the full house.
The NASA bill would formally authorize some NASA activities that the agency is already pursuing. They include the development of new spacesuits for the International Space Station and Artemis missions, an ISS deorbit vehicle, the Commercial Low Earth Orbit destination program to support work on commercial space stations, and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
The bill also includes provisions requiring a wide range of reports from NASA or other agencies, such as the Government Accountability Office, on these and other programs. Some examples of these reports are:
- An assessment of non-NASA demand for SLS;
- Human Landing System development studies and any “alternative approaches” if current efforts suffer from cost and schedule challenges;
- A GAO review of NASA’s plans for “continuous capability for human spaceflight and operations” in low Earth orbit in the transition from the ISS to commercial stations;
- A GAO report examining whether current cost limits on NASA science missions are appropriate and how NASA has handled missions that exceed those limits;
- A report from NASA on studies it has done in the past five years to rebuild or service the Hubble Space Telescope; AND
- A joint NASA and NOAA study on the commercial procurement of space weather data.
In addition to the reports, the bill signals his support for the Chandra X-ray Observatory amid concerns from astronomers that NASA’s proposals to reduce its budget could jeopardize its operations. It directs NASA to “take no action to reduce or preclude continued science operations of the Chandra X-ray Telescope prior to the completion and consideration of the next triennial review of mission extensions for the Astrophysics division.” This is a reference to the senior review of extended missions in astrophysics, the most recent of which NASA conducted in 2022.
The bill directs NASA to reconsider GeoCarb, an Earth science mission that the agency canceled in 2022 after cost overruns and difficulty finding a commercial geostationary orbit satellite that could host the instrument. Under the bill, NASA will reevaluate the completed GeoCarb instrument and look into potential launch options as part of a broader greenhouse gas monitoring strategy.