![]() Speaking to the Space Studies Board June 8, Nicola Fox, NASA associate administrator for science and former director of the agency’s heliophysics division, which includes GDC, defended the decision to put that mission on hold. NASA had already faced some hard choices in the original budget proposal, such as delaying the start of a heliophysics mission, the Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC), to accommodate growing costs for Mars Sample Return. She didn’t discuss specific challenges reduced spending will cause for NASA, but noted the agency will face “some hard decisions this year.” “We recognize that it’s unlikely we will get the full request, and we know that’s going to create challenges for us in the future.” “We do have to face the reality of the debt limit ceiling agreement and what might happen to our 2024 budget request,” said Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator, during a June 7 joint meeting of the National Academies’ Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and Space Studies Board. That full increase now appears unlikely with the new spending caps. NASA requested $27.185 billion in its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, a 7% increase over what it received in 2023. ![]() Appropriators will get allocations for each of 12 spending bills, such as the commerce, justice and science bill that includes NASA, and then determine how to distribute that funding among various agencies and departments. How those new spending caps will affect spending for individual agencies remains uncertain, since the cap is not an across-the-board measure. As part of the agreement to suspend the debt ceiling, the bill caps non-defense discretionary spending at 2023 levels for fiscal year 2024 and increases that cap by 1% for 2025. The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, signed into law by President Biden June 3, suspends the debt ceiling through the end of 2024, allowing the government to continue to borrow money and thus avoiding a fiscal crisis. WASHINGTON - NASA and congressional officials are still grappling with the implications of a debt-ceiling agreement that enacts spending caps, but acknowledged it likely means the agency will get less money than it requested for 2024.
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