Might NASA’s recanting of its decision to kill the Dawn asteroid mission be a forerunner of things to come? The giant budgetary sucking sound of human spaceflight has also crippled astrobiology as well as put off a mission to Europa. Turnabout on these verdicts, too, could well occur.

One project some space scientists pointed to at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston that’s worthy of killing outright is the James Webb Space Telescope – the follow-on to the Hubble. It’s waaaay out of control budget wise – some say in the $2 billion over-budget range.

Meanwhile, getting the Dawn mission on track is welcome news to the mission’s principal investigator, Christopher Russell of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Turns out, however, he was one of the last to know as the scientist was in transit to Turkey to see the recent solar eclipse.

“I am very pleased by the granting of our appeal of the cancellation,” Russell told me. “Dawn returns critical data on the formation of the solar system in a most cost effective way. We see no technical obstacles to a successful launch and a successful mission.”

The very first thing the Dawn team wants to do, Russell said, is to test the power propulsion units. “These were the last to be delivered and the stand-down explicitly told us not to perform tests such as these.”