By Xinhua
Beijing : NASA on Tuesday rescinded a directive that would have forced 4 million U.S. dollar budget cut in its popular Mars rover program and a temporary shutdown of one of its twin Mars rovers, according to media reports Wednesday.
James Green, head of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, last week sent a letter to its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, ordering 16 million dollars in cuts to the Mars program, including 4 million dollars in rover operations this year. If those cuts had been implemented, they would have required that at least one of the rovers be put in a state of hibernation.
Now, NASA says it has changed its mind about the cuts. “The NASA administrator has rescinded the letter,” said Dwayne Brown, a spokesperson at NASA headquarters in Washington DC.
According to Brown, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin did not review the letter sent by Green.
“All elements of the Mars Exploration Program will operate under their previous program guidance as if the letter was never sent,” Brown said.
The solar-powered rovers landed on Mars in 2004 and have long outlasted their planned three-month mission. They have impressed scientists and the public with findings of geologic evidence that water once flowed at or near the surface of ancient Mars.
With the cuts to the Mars program restored, the savings are still needed in order to make up for almost 200 million dollars in cost overruns by the Mars Science Laboratory project, which in 2009 will send a powerful rover to Mars that will dwarf Spirit and Opportunity. But it’s not yet clear where that money will come from.
The rovers are still in good health, says rover chief scientist Steven Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.