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"Here's some of the stories trending This Week at NASA!"
NASA's Fiscal Year 2015 budget proposal was announced March 4. The 17-point-5 billion
dollar budget supports NASA's new strategic plan to drive advances in science, technology,
aeronautics and space exploration. "The president's funding plan for America's
space program reaffirms the path we are on, and will keep us moving forward -- pushing
farther in the solar system and leading the world in a new era of exploration."
The budget enables NASA to continue fostering growth of a vibrant American commercial space
industry, stay on target to launch American astronauts from U.S. soil by 2017, keep utilizing
the International Space Station until at least 2024 and carry out even more ambitious missions
beyond low-Earth orbit.
"This budget keeps us on the same, steady path we have been following -- a stepping
stone approach to send humans to Mars in the 2030's. It's a path that has seen many recent
successes, from the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission last week -- the first
of an unprecedented five Earth Science launches this year -- to returning space station resupply
missions to U.S. soil with private American companies... to the power-up of Orion and
the countdown toward its first flight test later this year... to the final mirrors for
the James Webb Space Telescope being delivered." Two days after the budget announcement, Administrator
Charlie Bolden was the guest speaker at a luncheon on Capitol Hill, sponsored by The
Space Transportation Association. Bolden discussed NASA's budget, programs and prospects for
2014 and beyond. The Space Transportation Association supports policies that advance
robust, affordable space transportation for NASA, the Department of Defense and the commercial
market.
The next crew of the International Space Station is training in Star City, Russia for its upcoming
launch to the orbiting lab. NASA's Steve Swanson along with Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov
and Oleg Artemyev are scheduled for a March 26 launch, Kazakhstan time, to begin a six-month
mission on the ISS as Expedition 39/40. Meanwhile, NASA's Mike Hopkins returns to Earth March
11 while Rick Mastracchio remains onboard as part of Expedition 39.
Two of the three boosters that will power the Delta IV rocket scheduled to launch the
Orion spacecraft on its first flight test this fall, arrived by barge at Port Canaveral,
Florida. The core and the starboard boosters were transported to Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station for processing -- the port booster, is expected to arrive in April. Data from
Exploration Flight Test-1 will assist in Orion's design and reduce overall mission risks and
costs for later Orion flights.
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden delivered the initial keynote speech at this year's
Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium in Greenbelt, Maryland. The event attracts science and engineering
leaders from around the world to discuss some of the most important issues affecting space
exploration. This year's theme -- "Science and Exploration: Engineering the Future,"
celebrated past accomplishments while highlighting future space exploration priorities.
March 6 marked the five year anniversary of the launch of NASA's Kepler spacecraft. The
agency's first planet-hunting spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a
planned three-and-a-half-year mission seeking signs other Earth-like planets. Even though
it completed its prime mission in November 2012, Kepler's data still is being used -- to
date, more than 36-hundred planet candidates and 961 confirmed planets have been discovered.
And that's what's up ... This Week at NASA.
For more on these and other stories follow us on social media and visit www.nasa.gov/twan.