NASA's operating plan for fiscal 2007, still evolving as the agency struggles to accommodate a $528.1 million cut to its requested amount, kills a proposed robotic lunar lander as expected, and slips the initial operational capability of its planned Orion/Ares I follow-on to the space shuttle.

But it adds funds to two high-profile (and high-cost) space science programs - the Mars Science Laboratory and the James Webb Space Telescope - to keep them on schedule for their planned launch dates in 2009 and 2013, respectively.

In the plan submitted to Congress last month, Administrator Michael Griffin tells key NASA oversight chairmen that his agency still is working with the White House on options to "shore up funding" for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and its Ares I launcher within the FY '08 budget request, and that a final report will be delivered by May 1. But he repeats earlier warnings that, while the near-term effect on the nascent programs will be minimal, the out-year impact will be severe and "it is unlikely that NASA will be able to bring these new exploration capabilities online by 2014," which was the deadline set by President Bush.

As signaled in earlier interviews and congressional testimony, Griffin told Congress NASA will terminate its planned robotic lunar lander, originally scheduled to follow the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter due for launch next year as a way to study potential landing sites and technology (DAILY, March 16). The lander was deemed "not absolutely required" to reduce the risk for human landings, Griffin wrote.

Overall, exploration programs were cut $695.3 million as NASA shuffled the $16.264 billion it received under the fiscal 2007 continuing resolution, which essentially froze its funding at fiscal 2006 levels. Science programs were cut $95.4 million, but in the shuffling the Mars Science Lab rover got a $62.7 million boost to keep it on schedule for its 2009 launch window, bringing its total life cycle cost to $1.753 billion.

Similarly, the Webb telescope - an infrared follow-on to the Hubble Space Telescope that will be positioned at the L2 Sun-Earth lagrangian point - got a $9.9 million increase to stick to its 2013 launch date, with preliminary design review set for next year. The U.S./German Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) nabbed a $47 million increase, pending a "comprehensive independent science review" later this year.

But the Landsat Data Continuity Mission, a free-flyer designed to minimize the data gap caused by delays in the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), takes a $46 million cut in FY '07. Earth-observation missions suffer a $25.7 million net cut overall, but launch dates will not slip, NASA says.

To take up the slack in the Orion/Ares I efforts, NASA used program reserves and trimmed $252 million from its launch-infrastructure plans by switching to a "single-string" approach that will require more doubling up on existing International Space Station and space shuttle ground facilities.

Aeronautics, long the poor stepchild at NASA, actually gets an increase of $187.4 million under the operating plan, which is largely a reflection of NASA's shift to a single overhead rate for all of its field centers. The aeronautics program will continue to focus on "long-term foundational research across a breadth of core aeronautics competencies," Griffin wrote.