By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 9 at 7:36 am ET Earlier this week the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee marked up its fiscal year 2015 spending bill. The bill includes funding for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), including $16 million for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). That’s less than the $16.6 million requested […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 8 at 4:29 pm ET The US Court of Federal Claims issued an order today formally lifting the injunction on payments to and from NPO Energomash for RD-180 engines used by United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket. In the two-page order, Judge Susan Braden said her decision was based on the letters she received from the Departments of Commerce, State, […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 8 at 5:52 am ET The US Court of Federal Claims has scheduled a hearing for 10 am Eastern this morning regarding the motion filed by the US government on Tuesday to lift the preliminary injunction blocking payments to Energomash, the Russian company that manufactures the RD-180 engines used on the Atlas V. In filings with the court Tuesday, government […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 6 at 8:06 pm ET Late Tuesday the US Government, the defendant in SpaceX’s EELV lawsuit, formally filed a motion with the US Court of Federal Claims to lift the injunction the court issued last week blocking the government from purchasing RD-180 rocket engines from Russian company Energomash. The government provided letters from the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and State […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 6 at 10:44 am ET While the concept of a human Mars flyby mission launching in 2021 got the attention of some in Congress in late February, the proposed mission, based on designs developed by Inspiration Mars, has maintained a low profile since then. The authorization bill that the House Science Committee approved last week does require NASA to perform […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 5 at 6:07 pm ET Since the preliminary injunction issued by the US Court of Federal Claims late Wednesday that blocked the US Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) from making any payments to NPO Energomash, the Russian company that manufactures the RD-180 engine used by ULA’s Atlas V, there has been a increasingly heated war of words among […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 4 at 11:30 am ET Despite the uncertainty in exports to Russia created by the Ukraine crisis, the overall export control reform effort is moving forward. As of last month, the final rule for Category XV of the US Munitions List (USML), which covers satellites and related components, and its corresponding section of the Commerce Control List (CCL), was due […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 1 at 8:41 am ET Late Wednesday, the presiding judge in the US Court of Federal Claims case between SpaceX and the US Air Force issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) from purchasing RD-180 rocket engines from Russian company NPO Energomash. In her three-page decision, Judge Susan G. Braden concluded that purchases of […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 April 29 at 7:42 am ET On Monday, the State Department announced a new round of sanctions against Russia to protest its actions in the ongoing Ukraine crisis. Specifically, the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) “will deny pending applications for export or re-export of any high technology defense articles or services regulated under the U.S. Munitions List to […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 April 28 at 10:12 pm ET Late Friday evening, SpaceX issued a press release confirming what the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, announced earlier in the day: that the company was filing suit to protest the Air Force’s block buy EELV contract with United Launch Alliance (ULA). Besides going over the rationale for their protest, the company also used the release to […]
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