By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 30 at 11:12 pm ET Perhaps because of the preoccupation in Washington with the impending (less than one hour from now, as of publication of this post) federal government shutdown, there have only been a handful of reactions to Sunday’s successful berthing of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station. Shortly after the berthing, NASA did issue a release with statements from administrator Charles Bolden and presidential science advisor John Holdren. “Orbital joins SpaceX in fulfilling the promise of American innovation to maintain America’s leadership in space. As commercial partners demonstrate their new systems for reaching the Station, we at NASA continue to focus on the technologies to reach an asteroid and Mars,” Bolden said.
“This mission is exactly what the President had in mind when he laid out a fresh course for NASA to take Americans deeper into our solar system while relying on private-sector competition to lower the cost of ferrying astronauts and cargo to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station,” Holdren said. (Holden’s statement ignores the fact that Orbital’s accomplishment is part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program, which started in the George W. Bush Administration; Orbital got its award in 2008.)
One organization, though, remembers that COTS dates back more than four years. “Since 2006, the Foundation has supported the COTS program because it uses fixed-price, milestone-based awards,” Space Frontier Foundation president James Pura said in a statement Monday. The organization, he added, “believes that more funding should go into these kinds of programs, including the Commercial Crew program. Programs like COTS and CCiCap [Commercial Crew Integrated Capability] force the space industry to be innovative and not rely solely on cost-plus contracts.”
In Congress, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) recognized the accomplishment in a tweet:
And a former NASA deputy administrator also praised the Cygnus berthing and the successful SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 launch that took place just a few hours later:
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 27 at 6:23 pm ET With no sign of a deal between the House and Senate on a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded beyond Monday—the Senate passed a CR Friday that did not contain the controversial provisions of the House version—NASA and other federal agencies are laying out their plans should a government shutdown go into effect on Tuesday. On Friday, NASA published a memo from agency chief financial officer Beth Robinson describing what operations NASA would continue, and what personnel would stay on the job, should a shutdown go into effect October 1.
The short answer on the second question: not many. NASA said that 367 full time equivalent (FTE) personnel, out of a total workforce of 18,250, would remain working across the entire agency should there be a lapse in appropriations. The Johnson Space Center would keep 144 FTEs on the job, the most of any center; the Kennedy Space Center, by comparison, would have only 7 FTEs exempt from the shutdown, and the Stennis Space Center would keep only 4 FTEs.
The memo identifies those activities that are exempt from the shutdown and thus would retain those employees. Those include space launch hardware processing activities; tracking, operation, and support of the International Space Station and other NASA satellites; and “completion of phase-down” of ongoing research activities in those cases where “serious damage to property” would take place if there was an interruption in work. Activities specifically mentioned in the memo that are not exempt from the shutdown include education and public outreach activities, such as NASA TV and the NASA.gov web site: “citizens will not have televised access to NASA operations and programming or access to the NASA website.”
NASA has also published a list of frequently asked questions about operations in the event of a government shutdown.
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 24 at 7:00 am ET A week from today is October 1, New Year’s Day for those who live on the federal government fiscal year calendar. And, for many of them, it could become an unintended, and unwanted, holiday. With no appropriations bills for fiscal year 2014 passed to date, Congress needs to approve a continuing resolution to keep the government funded at 2013 levels. However, the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate are at loggerheads over a provision in the House CR, passed on Friday, that would defund provisions of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), language that would not survive in the Senate. The Senate will debate its version of a CR this week and likely pass it by this weekend, POLITICO reports, without the Obamacare language but perhaps covering a shorter span: until November 15, instead of December 15 as in the House.
Unless the House changes course and agrees to the Senate version, or some other compromise between the two chambers is worked out, next Tuesday will arrive without a funding mechanism in place, precipitating a government “shutdown.” That term is in quotes because, as the AP reported last week, less than half of the 2.1 million federal government employees would be out of work if there is a shutdown. Essential government operations would continue, which would cover at least some NASA operations, for example. There certainly would be visible disruptions, though: an OMB memo last week about a potential shutdown states that government websites should remain operational only if “is necessary to avoid significant damage to the execution of authorized or excepted activities,” which suggests that many of the NASA websites could go offline or not be updated during a shutdown. It’s also unclear how a shutdown would affect NASA’s Asteroid Initiative Idea Synthesis Workshop, scheduled to begin Monday the 30th and run through Wednesday the 2nd; while run by NASA, it is being held at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, and not on the NASA JSC campus.
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 20 at 1:04 pm ET On Friday morning, the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee held a hearing on NASA infrastructure. One of the topics that came up in the hearing was NASA’s plans to transfer control of Launch Complex 39A to a commercial entity, a process that has raised concerns among some in Congress about allowing a single company to control the pad, versus making it a multi-user facility. A few members of the subcommittee raised just those concerns in the hearing, although NASA officials testifying could say little about the process since the procure is still open (and being contested by Blue Origin to the GAO.)
However, not everyone in Congress is opposed to potentially turning over LC-39A to a single entity (in this case, SpaceX.) Earlier this week, the Florida Congressional delegation released letters calling on NASA to continue the process to transfer the pad, without explicitly siding with any particular company. When it was his turn to question the witnesses at the hearing, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) attempted to enter those letters into the record.
He was stopped, though, by subcommittee chairman Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS). “I’m going to reserve the right to object to the inclusion of the material in the record until my staff and I have the time and opportunity to review it,” he said. That was an unusual move: typically letters and other documents are routinely entered into the record by committee members without objection.
Posey looked a little stunned by Palazzo’s move. “Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I will yield to that,” he said after a pause of several seconds. “I have never heard of that rule before.”
“Neither have I, until the last minute,” Palazzo said.
Posey did read several lines of the House letter that he and the rest of the state’s House delegation has signed. “I think you’ll be pleased to include the letter when you the opportunity to read it, or your staff does,” Posey said to Palazzo.
After Posey’s five minutes of questioning ended, Palazzo did indicate that the letters had been entered into the record without objection, and reminded members to provide copies of documents they wish to submit for record to his staff. “I thought we had supplied you with copies of them,” Posey said, noting that several other members of the committee had received them. There is no mention of the Florida letters in the section of the hearing charter about LC-39A, although it does note a letter by five senators opposed to any exclusive use deal for the pad.
Update 9/21: SpaceX provided a statement on Friday evening regarding its interest in Launch Complex 39A, indicating it would be open to a multi-user arrangement. “SpaceX has nearly 50 missions on manifest to launch over the proposed 5 year lease period and we can easily make use of the additional launch site,” the company stated. “At the time we submitted the bid, SpaceX was unaware any other parties had interest in using the pad. However, if awarded this limited duration lease on 39A, SpaceX would be more than happy to support other commercial space pioneers at the pad, and allow NASA to make use of the pad if need be.”
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 19 at 9:12 am ET  Sen. Barbara Mikulski wishes Antares and Cygnus luck as she watches the launch from her office, in this photo provided by her office. The Antares rocket that lifted off Wednesday carrying Orbital’s first Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the ISS might be the biggest booster to launch from Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, but arguably the spaceport’s biggest booster is Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who has long been a major advocate for the Wallops Island launch site. “Today is a victory for space science and jobs!” she declared in a press release after the successful launch. “Today’s launch is possible because of the close partnership between federal and state agencies along with the private sector at Wallops Island working to create jobs today and jobs tomorrow.” To accentuate her support, the release includes a photo of her watching the launch on a television on her office, with a model of Antares next to the TV. For good measure, her fingers are crossed as the rocket lifts off.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also issued a statement about the launch that included a photo of him watching the launch on TV—in this case, with his hands on his hips, his fingers uncrossed. “This is a great milestone in our efforts to build out a commercial spaceflight industry at Wallops that leverages Virginia’s incredible talent pool and world-class launch facilities at Wallops Island,” he said in the statement.
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA), the ranking member of the appropriations subcommittee in the House that funds NASA, also weighed in. “Today’s Cygnus launch is a signal of immense progress for American commercial spaceflight,” he said in the statement. “This demonstration mission is a further testament of NASA’s commitment to growing and strengthening its ties with the commercial spaceflight industry in order to remain a world leader in space exploration.”
Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) saw the launch as a sign of his state’s growing competitiveness in the commercial space industry. “In just over a week, Virginia has witnessed two historic launches from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport,” he said in a statement, referring to the Minotaur V launch of NASA’s LADEE lunar mission, also from Wallops but not, strictly speaking, a commercial launch. “These historic launches are sure to put Virginia on the map as a leader in space exploration. We are well on our way to making Wallops Island the top commercial spaceport in the country.” Heads up, Florida.
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 17 at 12:00 pm ET In May, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center issued an announcement for proposals regarding Launch Complex 39A, a Space Shuttle launch pad no longer needed by NASA (which plans to use neighboring pad 39B for future Space Launch System launches). The agency hoped to attract a commercial user who could take over use and maintenance of the launch site, which, the announcement stated, would fulfill an agency mandate to support commercial use of space while also preserving the pad, since the agency has no budget to maintain the facility.
Two companies responded to the announcement: SpaceX, which reportedly is seeking exclusive use of the pad for its launch vehicles; and Blue Origin, which is proposing making the facility a multi-user pad both for its future launch vehicles and for other customers. While NASA has yet to make a decision on who would take over pad 39A, Blue Origin has preemptively filed a protest with the GAO. The rationale of the protest hasn’t been disclosed by the company, and the GAO listing for the protest provides only the filing date and the decision due date, December 12.
Several members of Congress have lined up in Blue Origin’s corner of this dispute. Earlier this month, five senators sent a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden, opposing any deal that would provide one company exclusive use of 39A. “Aside from the serious fiscal concerns,” the letter states, “blocking use of the pad to all but one company would essentially give that company a monopoly, stifling competition in space launches and therefore raising costs.” The letter’s signatories include Sen. Parry Murray (D-WA), representing Blue Origin’s home state, as well as Sens. David Vitter (R-LA), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), James Inhofe (R-OK), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Earlier this summer, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and James Aderholt (R-AL) expressed similar concerns in a letter to Bolden.
The Florida congressional delegation is now weighing in. In letters signed by Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) and by the state’s entire 27-member House delegation, they call on NASA to continue the ongoing process to lease the pad, without explicitly taking sides on whether the lease should be exclusive or multi-user. “Given KSC’s expertise, it should be within their purview and judgment to determine what factors to consider and outcomes to render,” the September 16 letter from the House delegation states. “We urge you to proceed with these plans.”
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 17 at 5:52 am ET On Thursday morning, the House Science Committee subcommittees on oversight and the environment will be holding a joint hearing titled “Dysfunction in Management of Weather and Climate Satellites”. Officials from the GAO, NOAA, and NASA are slated to testify on what the committee believes to be the poor state of development of weather satellites.
Interestingly, at the same time as the House hearing, the person nominated to be the next head of NOAA will be on the other side of Capitol Hill. Former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan will be one of three people (along with two OSTP nominees) who will be the subject of a confirmation hearing by the Senate Commerce Committee at 10 am Thursday. Sullivan has been acting administrator of NOAA since the end of February.
On Friday morning, the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee will have a hearing on “NASA Infrastructure: Enabling Discovery and Ensuring Capability”. NASA inspector general Paul Martin and associate deputy administrator Richard Keegan are slated to testify.
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 13 at 2:30 pm ET While Congress is back in session this month, few observers expect they will spend much, if any, time on the topic of a new NASA authorization bill. There are too many other issues for members to deal with, from foreign policy to a continuing resolution to keep the government funded; moreover, the differences between the versions of the bill approved over the summer by the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee appear to be too great to be reconciled, even if the full chambers are able to pass their versions. One recently retired Congressional staff member, though, emphasized this week the importance of such legislation to create policy and more sustainable funding for NASA.
“Right now, I think we are at the tipping point,” warned Jeff Bingham, who retired from the Republican staff of the Senate Commerce Committee last month, during a session Thursday at the AIAA Space 2013 conference in San Diego. NASA has been getting squeezed by flat or declining budgets the last several years, he noted, but has continued to try and continue all of its major programs. “We’re at the point, with the kinds of numbers you see particularly on the House side for 2014, I don’t think NASA can play these cards that way very much longer… You’re going to have to cut something. There’s something major that’s going to have to go.”
That’s where authorizing committees and their legislation step in, he argued. “It’s the responsibility of those committee to look at programs in their jurisdiction and say what should NASA be, what should NASA do, how should NASA do it,” he said. That policy should not be set solely by the White House, he added, but done collaboratively with Congress. “To do space right, you need ‘X’ kind of money,” a figure that should come from the authorization process and work its way through both the administration’s budget request and the budget allocations set by House and Senate committees.
The differences in the current House and Senate authorization bills are not evidence of NASA policy becoming more partisan, though, Bingham said, but instead an artifact of the bigger debate between the parties on fiscal issues. “It was actually hard to find areas in the policy substance in the Nelson bill that needed change or improvement,” he said, referring to a review he did of the Senate authorization bill introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). “If we can get past the money issue, then I think you’ll see that apparent partisanship dissolve.”
One area where there is, perhaps, a policy difference between the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate is NASA’s new asteroid initiative, highlighted by plans to redirect a small asteroid into lunar orbit. Both the House authorization and appropriations bills block that program from starting, while the Senate’s versions contain no such prohibition. The initiative “has a negative view in the House partly because the House didn’t really, in my view, look at what it was really all about,” Bingham said. “I think they mistook it, or chose to mistake it, as the new announcement of the Obama vision” and thus attacked it.
The White House hasn’t helped matters, though, Bingham added. “Their rollout on projects and activities has been miserable,” he said. “Part of it is that they don’t see the value in interacting with Congress effectively.” Bingham said he’s hopeful the asteroid initiative does survive Congressional debate on the 2014 budget. “I thought it was a good story,” he said, referring to a panel presentation on the effort by NASA officials at the conference the previous day. “I hope it can, but I don’t know.”
As for an authorization bill, Bingham is skeptical that a bill will pass, despite his earlier discussion of its importance. “What’s most likely is that we won’t have any action taken on NASA programs and policy,” he said. The policy provisions of the 2010 authorization act, he reminded the audience, remain in place even after the end of this fiscal year. “There’s a fallback position that nothing new this year is better than anything new that we have a hard time passing.”
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 12 at 11:07 am ET Yesterday, as part of a broader piece on budget uncertainty, we noted here that the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee had introduced continuing resolution legislation to continue funding the government at post-sequester 2013 levels through December 15, or the first two and a half months of fiscal year 2014. The bill includes juts a few adjustments to those spending levels, including a non-NASA space-related provision “allowing funding flexibility to maintain weather satellite programs, ensuring the continuation of data for weather warnings and forecasts, including forecasts of severe weather events.”
The original intent of House leadership was to bring the CR to the house floor for a vote on Thursday. However, POLITICO reported Wednesday that House leadership pulled the bill from Thursday’s schedule, meaning it won’t be taken up until at least next week. The report blamed the delay on “continued Republican divisions over how far to go to challenge President Barack Obama on healthcare reform,” and not any specific issues with the CR itself.
By Jeff Foust on 2013 September 11 at 10:55 am ET “How many of you know what your budget is going to be next year? Raise your hand,” said Larry James, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and the new deputy director of JPL, in introductory comments at Tuesday morning’s plenary session of the AIAA Space 2013 conference in San Diego. As you might expect, effectively no one in the audience of several hundred space professionals did.
That uncertainty about civil and military space budgets as fiscal year 2014 approaches was a recurring theme at the conference yesterday, where government and industry officials emphasized the “changing landscape” of the industry and the need for innovation. With NASA expected to at least start the fiscal year next month under a continuing resolution (CR), one that could potentially be extended for the full year (just yesterday the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee introduced a CR that runs through December 15), plus the prospects of another round of across-the-board cuts triggered by sequestration, few at the conference expressed a lot of optimism about the agency’s fiscal situation.
“There is a rumor that some plans are being drawn for a ’14 budget that’s compliant with sequestration which may be as low as $16.1 billion” for NASA, said Roger Krone, president of Boeing’s Network and Space Systems business unit, in that Tuesday morning plenary session. He didn’t offer more details about that rumor, but would be consistent with a roughly five-percent cut from NASA’s final FY13 appropriation, itself trimmed by five percent from the appropriations bill passed by Congress in March. A presentation at a NASA Advisory Council science committee meeting in late July used an estimate of $16.16 billion for a post-sequestration NASA budget in 2014.
How those cuts, or even the application of a CR, would filter down to the various programs in the agency remains to be determined. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, for example, was a beneficiary of the final operating plan released last month, seeing its budget restored to $525 million, the level approved by Congress prior to the application of sequestration. Ed Mango, manager of the program, told reporters at a briefing late Tuesday at Space 2013 that he wasn’t sure if that higher number would transfer over into 2014 if there is a CR. “If we are under a CR, we will be, unless there’s new legislation that adds to the CR, somewhere between $488 and 525 million,” he said. “A CR, and how that impacts Commercial Crew, is still to be determined.” He did add that the program is in good shape through the final weeks of fiscal year 2013 and, under some estimates, through all of 2014 as well.
“I would say the largest issue we’re facing is more of a programmatic thing, and it’s around the budget, and frankly around budget uncertainty,” said NASA’s Todd May, manager of the Space Launch System program, during a panel session on NASA’s human spaceflight programs at the conference Tuesday. Budgets are tight, he said, but that was common to past programs he’s worked on at NASA. “So far, we have met the challenge. We have done everything we can do to keep this thing on track.”
While former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver suggested upon her departure last week that SLS and Orion would likely suffer delays, May insisted SLS was remaining on schedule, even with the current budget concerns. “We just have to wait and let the appropriations process work itself out,” he said. “Every year, when all was said and done, we got what we needed to get the job done. I’m here to tell you that we’re on track for [a first launch in] ’17. We’ll see how things work out.”
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