In encouraging testimony last week, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt spoke highly of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and its operations.

Senator Britt (R-Alabama) appeared at a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies hearing with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on the fiscal year 2025 budgets for NASA and the National Science Foundation.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank our civil servants, suppliers, contractors and all those involved. [whom] “I will continue to work tirelessly to continue to support the mission at Marshall Space Flight Center,” said Rep. Britt (R-Montgomery). “For the record, I [absolute] I have every confidence and trust in Marshall's new director, Joseph Pelphrey.

“He's done a fantastic job and I'm excited to continue working with him.”

In his question, Britt began by praising Pelphrey and Marshall's entire team of staff and vendors who support everything from day-to-day operations to research, space exploration and missions that advance key national security priorities.

Britt highlighted the major programs Marshall will lead, including the Space Launch System, the Human Landing System and nuclear thermal propulsion.

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“Secretary Nelson, I understand the budget realities and financial constraints you faced when developing this budget request, but I just want to say thank you,” she said. “Thank you for continuing to fund several key priorities, including the Space Launch System, the Human Landing System and the Nuclear Thermal Propulsion System, which are essential to the execution of many of Marshall's missions. We appreciate it very much and look forward to working with you on each of those missions.”

“We know we must continue to invest in these important programs.”

Additionally, Britt asked Nelson whether NASA believes it has enough resources to ensure the Artemis II mission doesn't get further delayed.

“Keeping the Artemis schedule in place is essential to returning to the Moon ahead of China,” she said. “But earlier this year, NASA revealed that a variety of safety and hardware issues had delayed Artemis II until September 2025, nearly a year behind schedule.

“I appreciate NASA's diligence and efforts, especially in addressing these issues with Orion's heat shield. [the] “The spacecraft is where the crew lives. The safety and health of the astronauts is paramount, so we appreciate you making that your number one priority.”

Nelson said Artemis 2 is currently “on track to meet all milestones” to meet its planned launch date of September 2025.

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“I can assure you we will not launch until we are ready. We have had to make tough choices and are losing $500 million in overdue budgets,” he said. “We will make it. We will launch as scheduled in September 2025. Artemis 2 is meeting all of its milestones.”

“We're conducting additional investigations into some of the unusual events that occurred with the heat shield, but obviously we're not going to fly it until we're ready.”

Britt also expressed concern about aspects of NASA's Vision 2040 initiative, particularly the importance of allowing NASA centers like the Marshall Space Flight Center to maintain “direct oversight” over their own programs.

“We strongly believe that our center, which is responsible for the success of NASA programs including SLS, the spacesuit and the Exploration Ground Systems, should have direct oversight and accountability for the program managers, employees and the long-term success of the programs,” she said.

Nelson said Alabama is “closely tied to NASA's success” and agreed to update senators on Vision 2040.

“NASA sends $2.7 billion to Alabama every year, which is about 14 percent of NASA's entire budget,” he said, “and that includes 24,000 direct NASA employees. So Alabama is a very big part of what's going on and is intimately involved in the success of NASA and its programs from the Moon to Mars.”

This story was originally 256 today.