WASHINGTON -- NASA has decided to spare its Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule from any direct consequences of budget sequestration this year, according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr. Taking the cuts instead in the "exploration" part of NASA's budget would be commercial space companies trying to build spaceships to get American astronauts to the International Space Station.

The Space Launch System (SLS) is NASA's name for a new booster being developed at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville for deep space missions and the Orion capsule that will ride on top of it.

Bolden detailed the agency's plans for life under sequestration cuts in letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md) dated Feb. 5. (Read Bolden's letter below). Mikulski released Bolden's letter Feb. 14, along with letters from other agency heads about the effects of of the mandatory budget cuts now scheduled to take effect March 1.

Bolden and NASA managers assume that NASA will continue operating the rest of this fiscal year under congressional Continuing Resolution (CR) spending levels now in place. Congress is funding NASA and other agencies under a CR, which freezes them at last year's spending levels, because it cannot agree on a new budget.

A 5 percent cut in CR spending for the entire fiscal year would translate to a 9 percent loss of money over the remaining seven months remaining in FY 2013.

The total loss to NASA from sequestration for the year, based on its CR funding level of $16.9 billion, would be $894 million.

NASA would not be able to provide fourth quarter funding for FY 2013 program milestones at SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Sierra Nevada, Bolden said. That includes the SpaceX Inflight Abort Test Review, the Boeing Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control Engine Development Test, and the Sierra Nevada Corporation Integrated System Safety Analysis Review #2.

What else would take hits under sequestration? Science and research missions and infrastructure work (including some for the Space Launch System) are at risk.

The idea of cutting commercial space funding will be controversial in Congress for a simple reason. "Overall availability of commercial crew transportation services would be significantly delayed, thereby extending our reliance on foreign providers for crew transportation to the International Space Station," Bolden said in his letter. Right now that means riding aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft at $65 million a seat.



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