NASA’s Plan to Kill Robotic Lunar Lander is Rebuffed
House and Senate appropriators have pushed back against NASA’s proposed termination of a planned 2011 robotic lunar lander mission, directing the agency to spend $20 million this year to continue work on a follow-on to the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
The directive, in the form of a letter from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who respectively chair the Senate and House appropriations panels with NASA oversight, responds to a 2007 operating plan the space agency submitted to Capitol Hill in mid March. Besides formalizing NASA’s previously disclosed intentions to cancel the robotic lander, the operating plan details the latest cost estimates for a slew of other missions. Read more
