Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at 16:08 GMT (11:08 am EST) today, clearing the way for the space shuttle to lift off as scheduled at 4:50 pm EST this afternoon. Had the docking gone awry, the shuttle launch might have been postponed to provide an opportunity to troubleshoot that docking before the shuttle arrives at the ISS on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the six person STS-133 crew is suiting up. Steve Lindsey, Eric Boe, Alvin Drew, Steve Bowen, Michael Barratt and Nicole Stott will soon board Discovery for its final trip into orbit. Bowen replaced Tim Kopra at the last minute after Kopra was injured in a bicycle accident. Bowen also was a member of the last space shuttle mission (STS-132), making him the first astronaut to fly on consecutive flights. His spacewalking skills earned him the additional mission. He is rated as a “lead” spacewalker as is Kopra and the complexity of the spacewalks on this mission required that expertise.

Amid rampant rhetoric about a possible government shutdown replete with each side blaming the other, House and Senate leaders reportedly are crafting competing short-term Continuing Resolutions (CRs) that could avoid that situation while they negotiate on a CR for the rest for FY2011. FY2011 began on October 1, but Congress has not passed any of the 12 regular appropriations bills to fund government departments and agencies. Instead it has passed a series of CRs that keep the government operating at last year’s (FY2010’s) level. The current CR expires on March 4.

As House and Senate members spend this week in their districts and states judging the mood of the voters, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is said to be developing a one-month CR to keep the government funded at current (FY2010) levels while Congress decides what it wants to do for the rest of FY2011. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), meanwhile, is working on one that would last only two weeks and would contain funding reductions from the FY2010 level.

How the chickens are counted is key to how much Republicans and Democrats are proposing to cut. Top Senate Democrats assert that keeping spending at FY2010 levels is a $41 billion cut. That is in comparison to what President Obama requested for FY2011. Tea Party Republicans in the House want a $100 billion cut, but that is measured against the FY2010 funding level not the FY2011 request, a much deeper reduction. The “full-year” CR passed by the House last week covering the rest of FY2011 would cut $100 billion compared to the FY2011 request or about $60 billion compared to the FY2010 level.

In a statement today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) cited an analysis by Goldman Sachs of the House-passed CR as proving that it would cause a “double-dip recession.” Press reports say that Schumer and Reid indicated that they are willing to cut more than the $41 billion represented by keeping funding at current levels, but not as much as the House. Boehner also is drafting a short-term CR, but it would be for only two weeks and would include cuts to the current spending level. A Reid aide called it a “two-week version of the same reckless measure” already passed by the House. Thus, even the short-term CRs will be quite different, so a shutdown remains a possibility.

For more on what happens if the government shuts down for lack of appropriations, see this report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). According to that report, most government employees are furloughed during a shutdown and placed in a non-pay status, although in the 1995-1996 shutdowns they were paid retroactively. Some government employees are not subject to the furlough and must continue to work in non-pay status. CRS identifies them as Members of Congress, the President, presidential appointees, certain legislative branch employees, and federal employees who are “excepted.” Excepted federal employees include those “(1) performing emergency work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property, (2) involved in the orderly suspension of agency operations, or (3) performing other functions exempted from the furlough,” according to CRS. Some of the examples listed in the report are employees who provide for the national security, provide for benefit payments, or conduct essential activities such as — medical care of inpatients and emergency outpatient care, continuance of air traffic control, care of prisoners, law enforcement, emergency and disaster assistance, and activities to preserve the financial system, power production, and protection of research property.

The Air Force resolved their computer problem and the countdown has resumed. T-4 minutes and counting.

The countdown for STS-133 is down to the T-5 minute mark and holding. Minutes ago a problem developed with the Air Force’s range safety computer system display. There is very little flexibility in the launch window today, but everyone has their fingers crossed it can be resolved in time.

Space Shuttle Discovery is in its final planned hold waiting to pick up the count at T-9 minutes (9 minutes before launch). Everything was going well until moments ago when the range went red because of a problem with the range safety command system.

That’s a computer, and what all this means is the subject of considerable discussion to which one can listen on NASA TV or Spaceflightnow.com. The NASA launch director, Mike Leinbach, has decided to take the countdown all the way down to T-5 (5 minutes before launch) before deciding whether to launch today. So apparently they will pick up the count at T-9 hoping that the problem can resolved quickly.

UPDATE: The launch has been rescheduled for March 4.

ORIGINAL STORY: The launch of NASA’s Glory earth observation satellite has been postponed again, this time until March. Engineers still have not determined why the Vehicle Interface Control Console (VICC) sent a “hold-fire” command to the Taurus XL rocket 15 minutes before its intended launch early yesterday morning.

NASA reports that the VICC is located in a mobile launch support van a few miles from the launch pad. More time is needed to determine the cause of and remedy the problem. NASA now is looking at launch dates in early to mid-March.

An updated version of our fact sheet on NASA’s FY2011 Appropriations: The Debate Continues in the 112th Congress is now available. It reflects House action on H.R. 1. An amendment was adopted during floor debate reducing NASA’s budget by an additional $298 million below the House Appropriations Committee’s recommendation for the Cross Agency Support line.

UPDATE: NASA will wait till Friday, February 25, to retry the Glory launch. Launch time is 5:09 am EST.

ORIGINAL STORY: NASA postponed the launch of its Glory earth observation spacecraft this morning after an unexpected reading from the vehicle interface control console. The launch was scheduled for 2:09 am PST (5:09 am EST) from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. They may try again tomorrow morning at the same time if the issue can be resolved.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more information, check our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. The House and Senate are in recess this week.

Monday, February 21

• Final day of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, Washington, DC, 8:30 am – 12:45 pm EST

Tuesday, February 22

• Target NEO workshop, George Washington University Space Policy Institute, Jack Morton Auditorium, 805 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC. 8:00 am – 6:00 pm
• NASA teleconference on International Space Station Non-Profit Research Organization, 11:00 am EST (listen at http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio)

Tuesday- Wednesday, February 22-23

• Interagency Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), National Science Foundation headquarters, 4201 Wilson Blvd., Arlington VA, Room 1235 Stafford I Building, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm EST each day

Thursday, February 24

• Scheduled launch of the STS-133 (Discovery), 4:50 pm EST. Launch dates and times are subject to change. Check NASA’s shuttle website or follow NASA on Twitter to keep up to date.

The House finally completed debate on and passed H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution (CR) for the rest of FY2011, in the wee hours this morning (Saturday). For all the hundreds of amendments introduced and debated, as far as we can tell, only one directly affects NASA. We will double check the Friday-Saturday Congressional Record when it is issued to make sure nothing snuck in at the last moment, but for now, this is the best information we have.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) won approval to cut $298 million from NASA’s Cross-Agency Support account and use it to fund Community Oriented Police Services (COPS), a program in the Justice Department. NASA and the Justice Department are in the same section of the CR because they are both within the jursidiction of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee. The way the rules worked for debate on this bill, if a Member wanted to add money for something, the “offset” had to be in the same part of the bill.

Rep. Weiner was apologetic about taking it from NASA. On February 15 (Congressional Record, page H 891), he said:

Now, do I like the idea we have to take it from NASA space exploration? I don’t know any of the crime statistics on Mars, and I’m interested, but it’s a bad choice. If any of you like space exploration, so do I. In a way, I’m playing the game too. I’m taking from one place to give to another. But I do believe it’s in the interest of all of us to try to set these priorities straight. … So I hope you support the Weiner amendment by taking from Mars and putting it in the streets of your district.”

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who chairs the CJS subcommittee, opposed the amendment, but it passed 228-203. The money was not taken from Mars exploration as Rep. Weiner’s comments suggested. It was taken from Cross Agency Support, which funds Center Management and Operations, Agency Management and Operations, and Institutional Investments.

The appropriations committee already had cut NASA $303 million below its FY2010 appropriated level. With the $298 million cut in the Weiner amendment, NASA would be cut $601 million from its FY2010 appropriation, giving the agency a total of $18.123 billion for FY2011. Compared with President Obama’s request of $19.000 billion for NASA in FY2011, it is a $877 million reduction.

It is important to keep the fiscal years straight in this complicated budget debate. Many press reports say that the House voted to cut in total about $60 billion from federal spending, far less than the $100 billion Tea Party Republicans promised in their campaigns. That is correct. However, it is also correct to say that it is a $100 billion cut if the baseline is the President’s request for FY2011, which is what the House Appropriations Committee says. (Added to the complexity in following the debate is that President Obama submitted his request for FY2012 on Monday; congressional hearings have begun on that request.)

Whatever number one wishes to use for the cut that is in the House-passed CR, it is unlikely that the Senate will agree. Such deep cuts when at least five months of the fiscal year will have expired by the time anything is signed into law significantly magnifies the impact, and many Senators have indicated they are not willing to go that far.

The House and Senate are in recess next week while Members and Senators return home to face their constituents and see how all of this is playing in the rest of America. When they return to Washington, they will have one week to reach a compromise or pass another temporary spending bill. Without some sort of appropriations bill passed by midnight on March 4, the government will shut down. The Congressional Research Service has a handy report on government shutdowns that is available via the Federation of American Scientists website.