NASA Keeps Costly Mars Mission Alive

NASA is keeping its most ambitious -- and one of its most expensive -- mission to Mars alive, but it will take more money to finish a roving science laboratory if the agency maintains plans to launch during windows in 2009 or 2011.

The decision to proceed with the Mars Science Laboratory mission -- which has cost NASA $1.9 million to date -- was made after a review by NASA Administrator Mike Griffin today. The $1.9 billion respresents a $300 million cost overrun.

But agency officials say the mission is so important to NASA's science objectives that the best decision is to keep the mission alive.

"It's easy to say let's just cancel it and move on," said Ed Weiler, the Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "But we've poured over a billion and a half dollars into this. The science is critical. It's the flagship mission in the Mars program, and as long as we think we have a good technical chance to make it, we're going to do what we have to do."

Weiler and other officials could not say how much more the mission would cost -- those estimates must be given to the Congress and the White House Office of Management and Budget before they can be released publicly, the officials said.

NASA also declined to speculate on what other missions might be cut in order to shift money to the Mars Science Laboratory program.

This much is clear: The agency is facing both hardware and software problems that must be overcome before the SUV-sized surface rover can be launched.

NASA still is aiming to make a window that extends from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, 2009. The Mars Science Laboratory is to be hauled into low Earth orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The next opportunity would come in the fall of 2011.