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FIGURE 6‐3 NASA mission cost over time including future projections. NASA SMD/AD mission cost
over time including future projections. Dots correspond to launch dates or expected start dates.
Flagship missions are those that are not cost constrained at selection whereas intermediate and
Explorer class missions are so designated by cost.
National Science Foundation
NSF-Astronomy (AST) supports five large facility suites. The ground-based optical/infrared
telescopes operate from 0.3 to 20 micrometers and include facilities for both night-time astronomy and for
day-time solar studies. The ground-based radio telescopes operate at sub-millimeter to centimeter
wavelengths. For all of these facilities the observing time is competed, typically through bi-annual or triannual
proposal processes. About $250M of the roughly $300M total astronomy and astrophysics
expenditures flows through AST. The remainder is associated with NSF’s Divisions of Physics
(including Particle and Nuclear Astrophysics), Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, and the Office of
Polar Programs. Substantial facility investments include LIGO and Icecube which may yield
astronomical discoveries this decade.
The AST-supported radio observatories have been judged as world-leading, both on the basis of
their technical performance and from the desire exhibited by radio astronomers from all around the world
to use them. Radio telescopes operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) include
the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA), the Green Bank Telescope, and the Very Long Baseline Array
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