Mars explorers should be ecstatic. At Cape Canaveral, the biggest, most sophisticated rover ever aimed at our planetary neighbor sits atop a towering Atlas V rocket. Dubbed Curiosity, the $2.5 billion dune-buggy- size robotic scientist is poised for a Nov. 25 launch. Arrival is scheduled for August.
And yet, top Mars scientists are worried and angry. They fear an end to a carefully crafted campaign underway since 1994 to explore the red planet ahead of an eventual human landing.
At a White House meeting during the last week of October, administration officials “were clearly not very keen on signing up” for unmanned Mars missions in 2016 and 2018, said Daniel Britt, who attended the meeting as head of the planetary science division of the American Astronomical Society.
That presents an international problem.
In 2009, NASA agreed to jointly fund the dual missions with the European Space Agency, a longtime partner in space. But now, “the administration’s position is that they cannot commit to the plan of Mars in 2016 and 2018,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s planetary science division.
Because interplanetary missions can take a decade to plan and build, Mars scientists say time is running out to fund the two probes.
“The Mars program is now in a trajectory to, in effect, go out of business,” said Scott Hubbard, a Stanford University professor who revitalized NASA’s Mars exploration program after two missions to the planet failed in 1999. “That would be a tragedy.”
White House officials said no decision to kill the Mars program has been made. The administration is deliberating how to mete out NASA’s uncertain budget, said Rick Weiss, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
On Thursday, the Senate and House began negotiating the NASA budget for fiscal year 2012.
The Senate version, passed earlier in the week, would provide $17.9 billion, including $1.5 billion for the planetary science division, which houses the Mars program. The Republican-led House wants to cut the agency budget to $16.8 billion.
For now, NASA is moving ahead with planning the 2016 and 2018 Mars missions, the next steps in an effort to deliver a huge scientific prize to Earth: canisters of martian rocks and soil.
Next mission
The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover is scheduled to launch Nov. 25. The Mini Cooper-size rover is much bigger than its predecessors, Spirit, Opportunity and Sojourner. After its Mars landing in August, it will examine rocks, soil and the atmosphere.
