TOKYO — A House of Representatives bill would direct NASA to begin work on an asteroid mission in collaboration with industry, as well as a space debris inspection mission.
The House Appropriations Committee released the report accompanying its commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill on July 8, a day before a markup by the full committee. The CJS subcommittee reported favorably on the underlying bill on June 26 without discussing many details about its provisions.
The report provides additional details on NASA program spending and other provisions. Among those details are provisions that call on NASA to at least initiate studies of missions not included in the agency’s request.
The report directs NASA to spend $5 million on “a plan for a public-private partnership exploration mission to Apophis prior to the 2029 flyby.” Apophis is a close-to-Earth asteroid that will make a close approach to Earth in April 2029. NASA plans to visit the asteroid after the flyby with the OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft, an extended mission for the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission.
However, scientists are interested in visiting the asteroid before the flyby to see if the close approach — closer to Earth than the geostationary belt — alters the asteroid’s physical properties in any way. A workshop in the Netherlands in April discussed several possible missions to visit Apophis in the months or weeks before the flyby, including concepts from companies such as Blue Origin and Exploration Labs. However, NASA officials have noted that budget constraints have made it difficult to commit to a mission beyond OSIRIS-APEX.
The House report said that backers “are concerned that NASA will miss a unique opportunity presented by the close approach of the asteroid Apophis to Earth in 2029.” It suggests the committee believes such a mission could be accomplished through partnerships with the private sector rather than as a traditional mission.
“The Committee emphasizes the importance of effectively prioritizing resources to ensure the success of this mission and encourages NASA to explore funding mechanisms that balance the need for scientific exploration with budgetary constraints, including new and innovative approaches that leverage the expertise of small businesses, nontraditional partners, and the potential benefits of private sector resource exploration,” the report said.
The report allocates up to $25 million to NASA’s Space Technology Directorate for the agency’s Small Satellite Technology program for what it calls an Orbital Debris Inspection Mission.
“The Committee supports a technology demonstration that tracks, characterizes, and inspects multiple objects in space,” the report said, but offered little other guidance for such a mission. NASA’s 2025 budget request included $41.2 million for space sustainability efforts generally “to better understand and mitigate the hazard posed by space debris,” the proposal said, but did not explicitly include an inspection mission.
While space agencies in other countries are pursuing demonstration missions for orbital debris technology, NASA has yet to seek funding for missions to characterize debris or test active debris removal technologies. For example, the Japanese space agency JAXA has partnered with Astroscale on the ADRAS-J inspection mission that is currently flying near an upper stage as a precursor to a mission to deorbit that upper stage.
The report sidestepped some other key issues in the budget proposal. In Mars Sample Return, the committee endorsed NASA’s efforts to get input from industry on alternative ways to conduct the mission. However, it said it was concerned about “serious losses to NASA’s highly skilled workforce and leadership in areas critical to planetary science and future NASA missions,” and would direct NASA to spend at least $650 million on MSR. NASA is requesting $200 million for the program while it studies how to redesign it.
The committee’s report also voiced support for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which NASA is considering cutting due to its relatively high operating costs. Astronomers have opposed any cuts, fearing it could lead to the shutdown of the 25-year-old spacecraft. However, the report did not specify funding levels for Chandra or the Hubble Space Telescope, which are also facing possible cuts.
The report suggests that the committee is interested in possible changes in NASA’s approach to its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development, or CLD, program to encourage the development of commercial stations proposed by various companies. The report calls on NASA to provide a briefing on “its plans to achieve rapid and cost-effective CLD capabilities.”
That briefing would include an assessment of whether the program’s objectives could be achieved with “a mix of different services from CLD contractor teams rather than requiring nearly identical services from providers,” as well as “taking incremental steps toward more advanced CLD capabilities.”