U.S. Senator Katie Britt, as a member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, joined her colleagues in voting to advance the Fiscal Year 2024 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The appropriations bill provides key funding for space exploration and research, including directly supporting important efforts at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville (MSFC).
“The Marshall Space Flight Center is second-to-none,” said Sen. Britt. “As the incredible men and women at NASA, along with their partners in the private sector, continue to make historic leaps that broaden our understanding and expand the limits of human achievement, we must ensure that their groundbreaking work is supported. I am proud of the work that Alabamians accomplish every day to fuel a new age of American excellence in space exploration, and I am continually impressed at how our capabilities in Huntsville lead innovation crucial to our national priorities.”
In the bill, Senator Britt secured $110 million for the development of Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) based at MSFC to ensure that the United States has an NTP system capable of performing cislunar and deep space science missions, as well as potentially enabling future crewed missions to Mars.
This legislation also appropriates $2.5 billion for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which NASA hopes will put Americans back on the Moon with the Artemis missions before the end of the decade and be the rocket that launches Americans to Mars in the 2030s. The SLS program is managed at Marshall. This critical funding requested by Sen. Britt would also ensure future Artemis missions remain on schedule. The SLS is the most powerful rocket that has ever been built.
The bill would also fully fund the Human Landing System (HLS) program at $1.88 billion. Britt said that this funding ensures maintained progress for Artemis 3 and continued development of the two crewed lunar landers to provide services from the Gateway lunar space station. NASA’s recent selection of a second HLS team will ensure redundancy and competition as our nation returns astronauts to the moon. The HLS program is also managed at Marshall.
This legislation also supports NASA’s efforts as they evaluate multi-purpose habitation and life support systems for Mars transit and lunar surfaces currently involved in the Artemis missions, including in assembly facilities, to manufacture the mock-up and eventual habitats for these missions.
Earlier this year, in a Senate Committee on Appropriations subcommittee hearing, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reaffirmed that MSFC has the expertise and the workforce to establish a habitat and life support office that integrates and manages NASA’s efforts.
The FY2024 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act passed out of committee in the Senate. It now moves to the full Senate for consideration.
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