NASA restores funds for axed asteroid probe

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Funding for a asteroid
survey mission that had been canceled due to budget concerns
has been restored, NASA said on Monday.

To the astonishment of the project’s science team, the
robotic asteroid probe, known as Dawn, was axed on March 2
despite being cleared by an independent review team
investigating cost overruns triggered by technical problems.

Dawn was being designed to explore the two largest known
asteroids in the primary asteroid belt, which lies between Mars
and Jupiter.

Scientists want to study the asteroids, which do not
resemble each other, to learn more about how the solar system
was created.

NASA had already spent about $200 million of the
spacecraft’s estimated $289-million budget when it canceled the
project. Another $84 million was allotted for the probe’s
launch vehicle and related launch services.

Cancellation costs would have added $14 million.

NASA put the project on hold last October and ordered an
independent team to investigate the projected $40-million
budget overrun.

NASA said most of the problems centered on the probe’s
innovative ion engine, which unlike traditional
chemical-burning motors, generates speed by expelling a stream
of electrically-charged particles, or ions, stripped from xenon
gas.

The review team recommended NASA spend the extra funds but
the agency, which has been struggling to pay for a myriad of
programs, canceled the program on March 2.

“We had a very gut-wrenching decision and significant
management and technical problems to overcome,” said Colleen
Hartman, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for science, in
a teleconference with reporters on Monday.

Program managers appealed the decision and, on Monday, NASA
changed its mind.

Dawn is now scheduled to launch in the summer of next year
and it should reach its first target in 2011.

NASA agreed to reinstate funding and added about $70
million more to cover the project’s overrun as well as
additional costs associated with stopping work on the mission
for five months.

“I’m glad there were no fatal technical flaws, and that
they were able to find the money after all,” said Mark Sykes,
director of the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute and
member of the Dawn science team. “But this is not a good way to
do business.”