NASA Seeks $24.8 Billion for 2022, Renews Bid to Cancel SOFIA Observatory

On May 28, NASA released the detailed version of its fiscal year 2022 budget request: $24.801 billion. That is slightly above the $24.7 billion in the "skinny" outline published April 9, which covered only highlights such as added science and space technology money. It is also more than $1.5 billion above the $23.272 billion the agency received for fiscal year 2021.

Administrator Bill Nelson walked reporters through it by phone. He described the request as recognition that NASA's missions serve the administration's larger goals, from addressing climate change to creating jobs. The science account, at $7.93 billion, is the largest ever, he said, passing the $7.3 billion NASA got in 2021. "The Biden administration is proving that science is back," he said.

Earth science would gain $250 million, including $137.8 million to start the Earth System Observatory, a series of missions announced May 24. According to the request, NASA expects to develop four missions to cover the "designated observables" in the Earth science decadal survey, launching between fiscal years 2027 and 2030. Planetary science would rise by a larger $500 million, to $3.2 billion. Most of that goes to a new Mars Sample Return program, which gets $653.2 million, and to the Near Earth Object Surveyor, a small space telescope meant to find potentially hazardous asteroids.

The request also differs from those of the Trump years. It funds several science missions that were repeatedly targeted for cancellation, including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the PACE and CLARREO Pathfinder Earth science missions.

One familiar target remains. As in the 2021 request, NASA proposes ending the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, a modified Boeing 747 carrying a 2.5-meter telescope. Flying high above much of the water vapor that absorbs infrared light, it observes what ground telescopes cannot. NASA says its roughly $85 million annual operating cost cannot be justified by the science produced. The budget document says a dramatic improvement in productivity is not expected, and that an expensive platform with expensive consumables is inefficient compared with most observatories.

Congress has heard this before. Lawmakers restored SOFIA funding in the final 2021 appropriations bill, as they did when NASA proposed cancellation in fiscal 2015. NASA now argues that the James Webb Space Telescope can take over some of SOFIA's infrared work, and that ending the program would free money for a new "probe-class" astrophysics mission, if the coming decadal survey recommends one.

Exploration programs would rise 5% to $6.88 billion. Orion, the Space Launch System and Exploration Ground Systems stay flat, but research and development spending climbs more than 20%, to nearly $2.4 billion. That includes $1.195 billion for the Human Landing System. Nelson said the figure assumes a single "Option A" award. NASA picked SpaceX for it April 16, but work is paused while protests from the losing bidders, Blue Origin and Dynetics, are resolved.

Congress may want more. A NASA authorization bill, now in the Senate as part of a broader competitiveness act, would direct NASA to choose a second lander company and authorize $10.032 billion for the program from fiscal 2021 through 2025. The budget projects $6.96 billion over that span, counting 2021 funding. Nelson said members of both chambers have told him plainly that they want competition for the lander contracts that follow the first demonstration flight. He did not detail the extra cost, but told House appropriators May 19 that NASA would seek $5.4 billion more for human landers in a separate jobs and infrastructure package.

The document still points to a 2024 lunar landing; a passage on Exploration Ground Systems refers to the nation's next lunar landing goal of 2024. Nelson was cautious, noting that SpaceX's award calls for a crewed demonstration landing that year. "I know the goal is 2024," he said, but history suggests space development is hard enough that delays are possible, and NASA must be "brutally realistic." What to watch: whether Congress again saves SOFIA, and whether the lander money and a second provider materialize.