US Senate Budget Bill Rejects Fund Cut Proposal For NASA Mission

JAKARTA The Senate budget (RUU) bill for NASA has been agreed on July 26 to 26 in 3 votes. The bill was adapted to NASA's needs and rejected funding cuts. The Senate Allocation Committee provides a budget of US$25.434 billion through the Bill on the Allocation of Trade, Justice and Science (CJS). The amount of this budget is US$50 million (Rp814 billion) higher than the government's request. Reporting from Spacenews, All NASA projects get the same funds for fiscal year 2025, but there are three projects that the Senate has increased its funding. The three projects they pay attention to are exploration, science operations, and space operations. The exploration received an increase of US$30 million (Rp488 billion), while the science and space operations mission received an increase of US$10 million (Rp162 billion). This increase in funds was made so that NASA could focus on the Artemis mission. Although human exploration on the Moon is an important mission, the Senate criticized NASA's decision in cutting funding the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission so that the mission be cancelled.

To prevent NASA's plan, the Senate provided a fund of 174.5 million US dollars (Rp 2.8 trillion) in carrying out the mission. Before the amount of this fund was set, the Senate waited for a report on how the OSAM-1 mission could be launched in 2026. Apart from OSAM-1, NASA also wanted to cancel a mission in the field of heliophysics, namely Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC). In fact, this mission was a top priority. Senate members criticized proposals for cutting funds for the mission. Just like the OSAM-1 mission, the Senate added US$25 million (Rp407 billion) for the heliophysical sector so that its mission would not be canceled. The Senate is also waiting for the GDC launch report at the end of the decade.