By Jim Burk
MarsNews.com

NASA is considering delaying or canceling the Mars Surveyor 2003 mission because of a lack of funding by the Clinton Administration. The industry trade paper Space News reported Monday that program officials are short of funds needed to build hardware for the Surveyor 2001 mission. Although the White House fully funded NASA's $675 million request for the 2003 and 2005 sample return missions, a $50 million shortfall exists in the 2001 mission.

One option would be to delay the 2003 mission a year or more, launching on a slower trajectory than the 2005 sample return mission so that it arrives after the 2005 lander. In this scenario, the mission would still be carried out by a French-built orbiter, which would carry the samples back to Earth for a 2008 arrival.

When contacted by a representative from the Mars Society, JPL managers reported that the 2003/2005 missions have a funding shortfall in the near-term timeframe, and a funding excess in the long term. If they are unable to shuffle around the funding to fulfull their project requirements, the delay may be inevitable.

The Mars Sample Return program hopes to return the first samples from the Martian surface back to Earth for geological and astrobiological studies by the 2007-2008 timeframe.