WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law a disaster relief bill Jan. 29 that will deliver $15 million to NASA to repair facilities damaged by Hurricane Sandy in October.

The NASA funds are part of H.R. 152, a $50.5 billion emergency appropriations bill that passed the House of Representatives Jan. 15 and won final approval in the Senate Jan. 28. Combined with a $10 billion flood insurance bill signed in January, the House has now approved nearly all of the $61 billion in storm-related disaster relief the Senate tried, but failed, to enact in the last session of Congress, which ended Jan. 2.

“The administration’s supplemental appropriations request addresses urgent repair requirements for NASA, including barrier island dunes and berms protecting launch facilities at the Wallops Island Flight Facility and Kennedy Space Center,” NASA spokesman Allard Beutel wrote in a Jan. 25 email. “In addition, Sandy caused severe erosion of the coastal profile at Wallops that requires beach replenishment to provide continued protection against future storms.”

Orbital Science Corp.’s Antares rocket rode out Sandy on its launch pad at Wallops, which is located on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Neither the pad nor the rocket was seriously damaged, according to the Dulles, Va., company.

Nevertheless, there remains some cleanup work to be done at Wallops, which is overseen by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, located 255 kilometers away in Greenbelt, Md.

According to slides obtained by SpaceNews, Wallops personnel calculated a $26 million Sandy repair bill, which included rebuilding and bolstering the island’s seawall. Wallops officials briefed Goddard Director Christopher Scolese about their findings earlier this month, an industry source said.

Wallops has launched sounding rockets since the early days of the space program, but the coastal launch range is branching out. Pad 0-A, from which Orbital’s Antares rocket will launch, is one of the newest launch pads in the country, and the only pad at Wallops built to support liquid-fueled rocket launches.

If schedules hold, 2013 could be one of Wallops’ busiest years. The range is slated to support its first launches to the international space station and the Moon.

Orbital, which along with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is one of NASA’s two commercial cargo contractors, is scheduled to conduct an Antares test launch in March followed in May or June by a demonstration flight of the Antares-launched Cygnus cargo tug to the international space station. Orbital’s first paid cargo run is tentatively planned for later this year.

Wallops also is scheduled to support its first launch for NASA’s Planetary Science Division, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. That mission will study the lunar atmosphere and surface and is penciled in for an August launch aboard a solid-fueled Minotaur 5 — a launcher made from surplus Peacekeeper missile stages and operated by Orbital Sciences.

Dan Leone is the NASA reporter for SpaceNews, where he also covers other civilian-run U.S. government space programs and a growing number of entrepreneurial space companies. He joined SpaceNews in 2011.Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications...