Officials revealed on Friday 21 January that NASA's budget for 2006 contains no cash to save the ageing telescope. Instead, it earmarks funds to decommission the instrument. President George W. Bush will present the budget proposal on 7 February, and the US Congress will then consider it.
The telescope could yet win a reprieve. Congress could insist on boosting NASA's budget to include the costs of a servicing mission, as they did last year. And NASA has enough flexibility in how it spends its US$16.2 billion budget for 2005 to devote some resources to a rescue mission.
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