Senate Budget Committee Recommends Two Lunar Landers

The Senate Budget Committee has released a draft of the FY22 appropriations bill, and the committee says that NASA should have two lunar landers as it moves forward with the Artemis program.

"NASA’s rhetoric of blaming Congress and this Committee for the lack of resources needed to support two HLS teams rings hollow."

Senate Budget Committee draft FY22 appropriations bill.

The committee recommends that the U.S. Government appropriate $1,295,000,000, an increase of $100,000,000 above the budget request, for HLS.

NASA awarded a sole contract to SpaceX for a lunar lander based on the company's Starship spacecraft. The selection has been challenged by Blue Origin, which also offered a human landing system to NASA, stating that NASA did not follow proper procedures in making its selection. That assertion has been refuted by the Government Accountability Office, which said in August that it found that NASA "did not violate procurement law or regulation when it decided to make only one award. NASA’s announcement provided that the number of awards the agency would make was subject to the amount of funding available for the program."

Blue Origin has since filed a federal lawsuit against NASA over the award.

Now, in its draft appropriations bill (pg. 157), the Senate Budget Committee says that "in fiscal year 2021, NASA projected that the Human Landing System [HLS] would need $4,388,100,000 in fiscal year 2022. However, the fiscal year 2022 request before the Committee is $1,195,000,000. Given that request, NASA’s rhetoric of blaming Congress and this Committee for the lack of resources needed to support two HLS teams rings hollow."

The committee notes in the draft bill that history shows that such programs do not meet stated milestones in the early years of development.

The document goes on to say that "(t)he Committee believed, in providing resources for fiscal year 2021, that the resources would support early work for two teams. The Committee believes having at least two teams providing services using the Gateway should be the end goal of the current development program. To that end, the Committee provides no less than $1,295,000,000, an increase of $100,000,000 above the budget request, for HLS.

"Using this funding, NASA is expected to ensure redundancy and competition, including robust support for research, development, testing, and evaluation for no fewer than two HLS teams. The Committee expects real investments in development rather than additional studies. Within 30 days of enactment of this act, NASA shall deliver a plan to the Committee and post it on its website that explains how NASA will comply with this direction, including the resources needed for fiscal years 2023 through 2026 to execute the plan. NASA is expected to request such resources in future year budgets. In order to support HLS program development, no less than the requested level for the Lunar Lander office is provided."

The bill has a long way to go. Appropriations bills must pass both houses of congress in exactly the same form before they can be signed by the President and become law.

(Source: Senate Budget Committee and GAO. Images courtesy SpaceX, Blue Origin)