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NASA restores funds for axed asteroid probe

Posted on: Monday, 27 March 2006, 18:07 CST

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."

Source: REUTERS

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