Cost Increases May Lead to Mars Mission Cancellation

The Mars program, which includes gathering samples of soil from the planet, faces cancellation if NASA cannot guarantee it can complete the mission for $5.3 billion, The Hill reported on Wednesday.

Senate appropriators are offering only $300 million in funding for fiscal 2024 for the project, known as Mars Sample Return (MSR), which is far less than the $949 million budget that NASA requested.

Appropriators say they have serious doubts about MSR’s cost and viability, as well as whether NASA can even complete it.

The Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee wrote in an appropriations bill outlining the funding for 2024, “The committee has significant concerns about the technical challenges facing MSR and potential further impacts on confirmed missions, even before MSR has completed preliminary design review.”

The committee said it would also rescind the $300 million allocated for the mission if the agency cannot guarantee that the overall price tag will not exceed $5.3 billion, while NASA estimates that MSR’s development costs, which were originally $4.4 billion, have shot up to more than $9 billion.

This estimate only covers the cost of developing and testing the mission’s components, and does not include such basic items as launch costs or operating costs for MSR’s planned five-year timeframe.

However, a periodic polling of the scientific community meant to highlight important NASA missions last year said MSR was highly critical, and that it was worth requesting that Congress allocate more money to complete it.

However, NASA faces serious problems in getting more funding, as congressional negotiators are under pressure to keep overall government spending in line with a budget caps agreement earlier this year between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, according to The Hill.