Condolences are pouring in for the family and friends of Katherine Johnson, who died today at the age of 101. She won fame in recent years for her previously unheralded work as a human computer during the early days of NASA’s human spaceflight program — one of the African American women now known as the “Hidden Figures.”
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 23-29, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
A Department of Commerce (DOC) official said today there is an “urgent need” for funding to enable the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) to move forward with Space Situational Awareness (SSA) efforts. Congress appropriated only $2.3 million for OSC in FY2020, about 20 percent of the request. The Trump Administration is asking for $15 million for FY2021. In the meantime, OSC is doing all it can with available resources by working closely with other parts of DOC as well as with industry
Russia’s space state corporation Roscosmos announced today that the two cosmonauts in training for the next Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will be replaced by their backups. They and NASA’s Chris Cassidy are scheduled to launch to ISS on April 9. The swap reportedly is due to an injury suffered by one of the cosmonauts.
NASA has a new acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Melanie Saunders, replacing Jeff DeWit who resigned last week. Saunders was Deputy Associate Administrator and her replacement on an acting basis is Cathy Mangum, who has been Associate Director of Langley Research Center.
DARPA’s Launch Challenge is on! The prize-money competition to demonstrate flexible, responsive launch capabilities should see its first rocket launch before March 1 from Kodiak Island, Alaska. The sole remaining competitor, Astra, will have to reach orbit and then do it again within two weeks to win $12 million.
SpaceX and Space Adventures announced today that they have signed an agreement to fly private citizens to orbit on one of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The four space tourists would not dock at the International Space Station (ISS), but remain in space for up to 5 days on a free-flying mission. The asking price was not revealed.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 16-22, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions.
President Trump signed two new space-related Executive Orders (EOs) this week. One takes steps to protect critical infrastructure from disruptions to systems that provide positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. DOD’s Global Positioning System (GPS) is the best known of these. It also incentivizes efforts to develop alternatives to GPS. The other EO adds new members to the White House National Space Council.
NASA picked four missions for additional studies as the next step in deciding what will be the next mid-size planetary exploration probe in its Discovery series. Two of the four would investigate Venus. The other two would go to moons in the outer solar system, Jupiter’s Io and Neptune’s Triton. NASA plans to select two for launch in the mid-late 2020s.