NASA plans to shelve a robotic demonstration mission to refuel an aging Landsat Earth-imaging observatory and join forces with the private sector and a U.S. military research and development agency in a public-private partnership to commercialize satellite servicing technologies, according to language in the White House’s budget request released Tuesday.
The Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget request includes $19.1 billion for NASA, a $561 million decrease over previously enacted levels that would reduce the number of Earth science missions, eliminate the agency’s education office and do away with the Obama administration’s plans to robotically retrieve a piece of an asteroid as a precursor to eventual flights to Mars.
Fresh off its fifth passage through a gap between Saturn’s atmosphere and rings, NASA’s robotic Cassini spacecraft is looping toward a close brush with the planet’s innermost ring next week, when the probe will again use its high-gain antenna as a shield against icy particles that may lie in its path.
The first test flight of Rocket Lab’s commercially-developed Electron launcher was held up by weather Sunday, but conditions could improve for a launch attempt Monday from New Zealand to place an instrumented rocket stage into Earth orbit in a demonstration of the company’s low-cost delivery system for lightweight satellites.
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