By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 29 at 1:11 pm ET Last year, The Planetary Society announced a “conditional” endorsement of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (AMR), calling it an “intriguing idea” but arguing that it needed to know more details about the concept. “The Planetary Society is concerned that the detailed goals, costs, and implementation plan for this asteroid mission are not yet well defined,” it said in its May 2013 statement, also emphasizing the need for stable long-term funding for the program.
Earlier this week, the organization revisited that conditional endorsement and removed some, but not all, of those conditions. “In the past year, NASA has made commendable progress in developing its plans” for the ARM, the society said in its revised endorsement.
However, it added it’s still seeking “a rigorous and independent cost and technical evaluation” of ARM. “We worry that the ARM effort will prove a great deal more expensive than is currently being suggested,” the organization stated. “As has happened too often in the past, cost overruns lead to budgeting difficulties for years into the future.”
The Planetary Society is not alone is seeking additional details about the ARM. The NASA authorization bill passed by the House Science Committee last month also calls for a report on the ARM, calling for detailed cost and technical assessments of the proposed mission. The House bill does not explicitly require that report to be an independent assessment, though.
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 29 at 9:29 am ET The House of Representatives started deliberation Wednesday evening of the fiscal year 2015 Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill, HR 4660. So far, that debate has not led to any changes in provisions of the bill funding NASA; an amendment to cut NASA exploration spending by $10 million and transfer $8 million of it to the International Trade Administration failed on a voice vote. The House is expected to wrap up debate over the bill and approve it by late today.
As the full House started consideration of the bill, the White House released its Statement of Administration Policy (SAP), outlining the issues it has with the bill. For NASA, it highlighted two areas that received less funding in the bill than in the administration’s request: commercial crew and space technology. “The Administration appreciates the Committee’s support for NASA, but is disappointed the bill does not provide the full funding request for the Commercial Crew Program,” the SAP stated, warning that the lower funding level threatens the goal of beginning astronaut transportation to the ISS by 2017. “The Administration also encourages the Congress to support competition in the program, which is important to lowering risk and reducing prices in the long term,” it adds, referring to report language that calls for NASA to downselect to a single company in the next round of the program, later this year.
The SAP also briefly discusses the space technology program, which was cut by $85 million from the administration’s request. “Space Technology is important to reducing the cost and increasing the capability of NASA, other Government, and commercial space activities.”
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 28 at 6:16 am ET Texas held several primary runoff elections on Tuesday, and two of the results had some space policy implications. In the 4th district, former House Science Committee chairman Ralph Hall lost a Republican party runoff to former US Attorney John Ratcliffe, 53 to 47 percent. Hall was chairman of the committee in 2011–2012, and served as ranking member in 2007–2010 when the Democrats were in the majority; he currently holds the honorary position of “chairman emeritus” on the committee. Hall was first elected to Congress in 1980 as a Democrat, but changed parties in early 2004.
In the 36th Congressional district, which includes near its boundaries the Johnson Space Center, Brian Babin defeated Ben Streusand in the Republican primary by a 58-42 percent margin. The seat is currently held by Rep. Steve Stockman (R), who challenged Sen. John Cornyn for the Republican Senate nomination and lost in the primary earlier this year. Space policy didn’t play a major role in the race, although during the runoff campaign Babin’s campaign trumpeted an endorsement by retired NASA flight director Gene Kranz. “I firmly believe Dr. Brian Babin is committed to NASA and the space industry and will work hard to maintain the Johnson Space Center as the leader in space operations, engineering and science,” Kranz said in the endorsement earlier this month.
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 23 at 9:43 am ET The Senate Armed Services Committee completed work this week in closed sessions on its version of the fiscal year 2015 National Defense Authorization Bill. While the full text of the bill is not yet available, members of the committee have provided some news about its contents, including provisions regarding development of a new large rocket engine to replace the Russian-manufactured RD-180 and competition for military space launches.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) announced in a press release Thursday afternoon that the Senate’s NDAA authorizes funding for development of a new rocket engine. “Mr. Putin’s Russia is giving us some problems,” Nelson said in the statement. “So we put $100 million in the defense bill to develop a state-of-the-art rocket engine to make sure that we have assured access to space for our astronauts as well as our military space payloads.”
The release doesn’t offer details about that provision, beyond that it would call for that new engine to be developed in five years, similar to what’s in the House version of the NDAA. However, the Senate figure of $100 million is less than half of the $220 million authorized for that engine program in the House bill.
Another member of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), trumpeted in a press release three provisions regarding military space launch that he got included in the bill. One would require “a full and open competition on two satellites that they tried to sole-source,” without identifying the satellites. Another would prohibit future contracts for purchases of Russian rocket engines, while a third calls for an investigation into “undue reliance by the U.S. space industry on foreign suppliers and parts such as engines.”
What the Senate’s NDAA doesn’t do, though, is change the EELV “block buy” contract with United Launch Alliance. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters Thursday that while he supported competition in military space launch, SpaceX was not yet ready to compete since they are stil undergoing certification. “Until they’re certified we want to be able to keep the program going and we want to get the benefit of that block-buy program, four billion bucks savings,” he said, as reported by Breaking Defense. “We try to balance.”
Across the country from Washington, though, SpaceX got some words of support from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “Launch costs are a huge part of my budget, so the way to drive down cost typically is through competition,” he said in response to a question about launch competition during a speech at the 30th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs on Thursday.
“I do want to give a shoutout to SpaceX,” he added, noting he visited their main factory in California and their launch site at Cape Canaveral recently. “I’ve been tremendously impressed with their ingenuity and drive and aggressiveness.”
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 22 at 12:10 pm ET Despite comments made last week by Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin that Russia would ban the use of the RD-180 engine to launch US military payloads, an Atlas V 401 rocket, powered by such an engine, lifted off Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. That doesn’t mean, though, that the government isn’t worried about what would happen if the engine became unavailable.
“Impacts of an RD-180 loss are significant, and near term (FY14 – FY17) options to mitigate them are limited,” the RD-180 Study Group, sometimes called the Mitchell Report after its chair, retired Air Force H. J. “Mitch†Mitchell, stated in a summary presentation not formally released yet by the Defense Department but widely passed around the space industry this week. The report noted that there are 38 Atlas V missions on the manifest (presumably including the NROL-33 that launched this morning) but only 16 RD-180 engines stockpiled in the US.
The report estimated impacts of the loss of the RD-180 at between $2.5 and 5 billion, depending on when Atlas V launches ended and how payloads were transferred to Delta IV vehicles. That transfer would result in both additional expense and delays, the report summary noted, since United Launch Alliance “cannot ramp up Delta production fast enough” to avoid delays of, on average, 2 to 3.5 years. A new entrant (unnamed in some of the summary’s slides but clearly SpaceX) would not be able to pick up the slack, either, the summary noted. In a scenario where no more RD-180s are available, the summary states the “need to reassess” EELV competition and acquisition strategies.
The committee offered several recommendations, including accelerating purchases of RD-180 engines from Russia, but did not recommend starting domestic co-production of the engine: “Doable but does not improve the current situation,” the summary stated. It instead recommended, regardless of the availability of the RD-180, development of a new large liquid oxygen/hydrocarbon engine. That work should be led by a joint Air Force/NASA program office, the summary stated, and “could be available” by fiscal year 2022.
The report, a White House official said Wednesday, will factor into the administration’s discussions regarding the future of the RD-180 and development of a new engine, but no immediate decisions are forthcoming. “All those results just came in last week, and we’re going through them, both with DOD and with NASA,” Richard DalBello, assistant director for space and aeronautics at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, in a luncheon speech Wednesday at the 30th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “We’re going to be doing an assessment of where we’re going to go, but right now no decisions have been made.”
DalBello, like Gen. William Shelton on Tuesday, also sought to play down the comments by Rogozin. “There’s been a lot of hyperbole and there’s been a lot of breathless writing on this topic,” he said. “Go read the words of what the men are actually saying and I think you’ll find it’s a little bit calmer.”
DalBello specifically recommended that people read the transcript of Rogozin’s May 13th remarks. Those words, though, may not be that reassuring to some. “I would like to confirm the statement made by [Roscosmos chief] Mr. [Oleg] Ostapenko and to say that, indeed, we will proceed from the fact that we can no longer deliver these engines to the United States, and that we can no longer maintain and repair previously shipped engines, unless we receive guarantees that our engines are used only for launching civilian payloads,” Rogozin said in the official English-language transcript. “We need these guarantees. It would be strange if Russian money and brains were used for launching military payloads that would help in various unclear space projects.”
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 21 at 8:40 am ET This week, the full House is taking up its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes some space-related provisions, such as authorizing funding for a domestic rocket engine to replace the RD-180. The Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, is working on its own version of the NDAA this week in closed sessions. As early as next week, the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) appropriations bill, which provides $17.9 billion for NASA, will reach the House floor.
Not long thereafter, the House is expected to take up a NASA authorization bill passed by the House Science Committee last month. “We expect floor time in the next few weeks, so we can pass that smoothly and send it on to the Senate side,” said Tom Hammond, majority staff director for the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee, during a panel session at the 30th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs on Tuesday afternoon.
The Senate, meanwhile, is working on its version of a NASA authorization bill. “There’s still hope of getting a NASA reauthorization through this Congress,” said Ann Zulkosky, senior professional staff on the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, on the same panel. She said the topics under consideration for the bill include intellectual property rights issues for companies doing research on the International Space Station, an extension of the ISS itself beyond 2020, and maintaining competition in NASA’s commercial crew program.
One issue that doesn’t appear likely to make it into the House or Senate NASA authorization bills is a new engine development program. “From a NASA perspective, this is not an issue that we have dealt with directly,” Zulkosky said. Hammond concurred, nothing the action on an RD-180 replacement in the NDAA.
Both the House and Senate are also working on legislation to update the Commercial Space Launch Act. The House version, said Hammond, may address several issues, including a request by the FAA for on-orbit authority for commercial space transportation vehicles and an extension of the “learning period” that limits the FAA’s ability to enact safety regulations for spaceflight participants. The bill may include “some asteroid mining or exploitation provisions,” he added, without elaboration.
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 20 at 2:51 pm ET A week after Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin ignited a firestorm with a claim that Russia would ban the use of RD-180 engines for launching American military payloads, the head of Air Force Space Command said that operations were proceeding as usual and urged a “pause” in the debate.
“There have been no official pronouncements out of the Russian government on the RD-180. There has been the one ‘twitter’ out of one government official that has caused everybody concern,” said Gen. William Shelton in a press conference at the 30th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs Tuesday morning. “It’s time that we all kind of paused and and make sure we understand the messages and make sure we understand where the messages are coming from officially.”
While Shelton appeared to be referring to this tweet from Rogozin, others at the press conference noted Rogozin made the comments at a press conference in Moscow. Shelton, though, said there was still a need to understand the official government position. “I think it’s a time to pause and find out if that’s the official position,” he said. “Right now, I don’t think we have an indication that it really is where the government comes down on this in the long term. And there are other indications that ‘business as usual’ is the state of play with Russian industry.”
Shelton, though, said he personally supported proposals to develop a new large “hydrocarbon boost” rocket engine in the US. “There’s a debate to be had, and I think it will occur over the next four to five months,” he said, noting that while some in Congress support new engine development (there is language to that effect in the House defense authorization bill), other, unnamed people in government don’t necessarily agree. Shelton added that he supported development a new engine development, helping support the space industrial base, over co-production of the RD-180 in the US. “All of the studies we did in the past indicated that the cost to co-produce versus the cost of developing a new engine were about in the same ballpark,” he said.
Shelton also addressed the SpaceX launch competition controversy, saying that the Air Force was committed to competition and getting SpaceX certified. “When you’re spending $60 million and putting 100 people against the problem to get somebody certified, it’s hard to say you’re excluding them,” he said of the Air Force’s investment in getting the SpaceX Falcon 9 certified. He added that he thought it would be difficult to accelerate the certification process, which won’t be done before the end of the year, “and I think SpaceX would have a hard time going faster than they are now.”
As for the SpaceX lawsuit, Shelton said this: “Generally, the person you want do business with, you don’t sue them.” But as others have noted, contract protests and other suits over government business are hardly uncommon in the industry.
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 17 at 1:57 pm ET Since the start of the Ukraine criss, the United States and Russia have exchanged space-related sanctions and other measures in recent weeks. Canada, meanwhile, pulled several small satellites that were scheduled to launch in June on a Soyuz. (Russia has subsequently delayed the overall launch for “organizational reasons.”)
Europe has not followed, though, in part because of its closer ties with Russia’s space program, such as the joint ExoMars program that features a 2016 orbiter mission and a 2018 rover mission. Speaking at the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) meeting in Washington on Tuesday, Rolf de Groot of the European Space Agency said that, so far, the crisis has not affected that cooperation. “Our member states have not instructed us to tone down on our cooperation with Russia,” he said. “It might obviously be different if the European Commission started intervening in this process, but for now, there’s no pressure.”
However, US-Russia actions are having an effect on the 2016 orbiter, he said. The State Department is reviewing all export licenses to Russia, which has the potential to delay the mission’s US-provided components, a complication for a mission that currently has limited slack in its schedule. “The effects of this on ExoMars are still to be determined,” he said, adding that ESA is working with NASA’s international relations office to convince the State Department to approve the license. “This needs to be resolved within a few weeks because that’s all the margin we still have in the schedule. We hope that with a little bit of help from NASA, we can find a solution for the 2016 mission.”
Ironically, this became an issue only because of NASA’s decision in 2012 to terminate its original partnership with ESA on ExoMars. That forced ESA to turn to Russia to become a partner on the mission.
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 16 at 3:46 pm ET Late Thursday, NASA released the final report of the latest “senior review” of ongoing astrophysics missions, a study done every two years to ensure that missions that have completed their primary missions are still performing science that justifies the expense of their continued operations. This review had been watched closely because of NASA’s constrained budget and the large number of missions under consideration. (A separate review of NASA’s planetary science missions is ongoing.)
The final report was mostly good news for NASA’s astrophysics missions. Even in the more pessimistic of the two budget scenarios considered in the senior review, the committee recommended most missions continue, although in some cases with cuts in certain activities. That included the “K2†mission for Kepler, which had to end its primary mission last year when the second of four reaction wheels failed.
The exception, though, is the Spitzer Space Telescope, one of NASA’s four original Great Observatories. Spitzer “would be the most expensive of the missions reviewed, despite the fact that Spitzer’s observational capabilities are significantly reduced since its prime mission,” the report stated. In the more optimistic funding scenario, it recommended that unless Spitzer can operate at a reduced funding level, it should be terminated. In the more pessimistic scenario, the senior review recommended it be terminated in fiscal year 2015.
In NASA’s response to the senior review report, it went along with that recommendation. “The baseline plan to complete Spitzer operations after the end of FY 2014 and complete the closeout of the mission by the end of FY 2015, consistent with the President’s FY 2015 budget request, is confirmed,” it stated. It adds, though, that the project can submit a revised budget request to operate with reduced funding that would be considered in planning for the FY16 budget request later this year. “If the Administration proposes additional funding for Spitzer in the FY16 Budget, the project will be able to seamlessly continue operations in FY15, while awaiting final appropriations from the Congress for FY16.”
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 15 at 3:54 pm ET In a letter to NASA administrator Charles Bolden today, three key members of the House Science Committee asked for information on how threats by Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin regarding the future of the ISS would affect the agency’s plans.
In their letter, House Science Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), space subcommittee chairman Steven Palazzo (R-MS), and space subcommittee vice-chairman Mo Brooks (R-AL) referred to Rogozin’s comments on Tuesday about Russia not agreeing to continued operation of the ISS beyond 2020. “If Mr. Rogozin’s statement proves to be accurate, we will have to take a step back and evaluate the costs and benefits of maintaining the ISS beyond 2020 without our Russian partners,” they wrote.
The three members asked Bolden several questions, including the status of efforts to get ISS partners to commit to operating ISS beyond 2020, the critical roles Russia plays in supporting the ISS today, and what would happen if Russia withdrew as Rogozin suggests. The members also ask Bolden about another topic Rogozin mentioned Tuesday: banning the use of RD-180 and NK-33 engines for launching military payloads. They note that while the restriction would still allow NASA to use the engines for its missions, “this may impact the price NASA pays for launch vehicles that utilize these engines, as decreases in supply may impact availability.” The members asked Bolden to provide responses by May 28.
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