NASA has delayed the launch of its next Mars probe by one day, to Saturday, November 26.
The delay is needed to replace a flight termination system battery according to NASA’s website. The probe, called the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) or “Curiosity,” now will be launched at 10:02 EST on November 26. The launch window that day is open for 1 hour and 43 minutes. Overall, the launch window to Mars is open until December 18.
UPDATE: The launch of the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) has been delayed from Friday to Saturday.
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 (though pro forma meetings are scheduled).
During the Week
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!! While most of us are filled with thoughts of turkey and all the trimmings, there are a couple of events to note.
Congress is in recess. but the congressional supercommittee plans to meet through the weekend in the hope (however dwindling) of reaching agreement before the November 23 deadline legislated in the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25). The 12 members — six Democrats and six Republicans, six from the House and six from the Senate — are tasked with finding a way to reduce the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years beginning in FY2013. Eleventh-hour compromises are all too common in Washington to give up on them so many days in advance of their deadline, though many pundits are already talking about the consequences if they do not. Under the Act, if the supercommittee fails to reach agreement, or if they do but Congress as a whole does not agree by December 23, automatic spending cuts will go into effect to achieve the $1.2 trillion reduction. We will be keeping up on the supercommittee’s progress, so check back here for news as it develops.
The Russians will continue to try and contact Phobos-Grunt, their Mars probe that remains stranded in Earth orbit. Attempts so far have been unsuccessful.
Monday, November 21
Wednesday, November 23
Thursday, November 24
Saturday, November 26
NASA, NOAA and the FAA are three of the lucky government agencies that now know their appropriations levels for FY2012. The minibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2112, was signed into law by the President today.
The minibus combines three of the 12 regular appropriations bills: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD). Departments and agencies funded in the other nine bills, including DOD, still have to wait for Congress to determine their FY2012 funding levels. They are now funded through December 18 by a second Continuing Resolution (CR) that was included in H.R. 2112.
The supercommittee continues to struggle to come up with an agreement to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion, but those changes would affect FY2013 and beyond. The political and national media are full of discouraging predictions about the likelihood of the supercommittee reaching agreement by its deadline of November 23, but the fat lady still hasn’t sung. The 12 members of the supercommittee — six Democrats and six Republicans, six from the House and six from the Senate — plan to meet through the weekend.
The United States Congress presented Congressional Gold Medals to the Apollo 11 crew and John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, in a ceremony yesterday at the U.S. Capitol.
Several Members of Congress, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), along with NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong, and former Senator Glenn spoke. C-SPAN has a recording of the entire ceremony from start to finish. (Individual Members and NASA have posted segments where they are speaking on YouTube, but the C-SPAN recording is the only one we’ve found that shows the ceremony in its entirety.)
The medals actually were awarded two years ago, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. Yesterday’s ceremony was an official presentation of the medals and another opportunity for Congress, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, to show its support for NASA. Despite the contentious partisan politics on most other matters, the space program typically is not a partisan issue on Capitol Hill. While the appropriations bill that is expected to be voted on tomorrow that includes NASA’s FY2012 funding (H.R. 2112) provides less than the President requested ($17.8 billion instead of $18.7 billion), all things considered, the agency did quite well.
All three Apollo 11 astronauts — Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins — were present, although Armstrong is the only one who spoke. He pointed out that in the history of the country, nine Congressional Gold Medals have been presented for achievements in aviation and rocketry, but these were the first for spaceflight. The first Congressional Gold Medal was presented to George Washington in 1776. The Wright Brothers, Charles Lindbergh, and Robert Goddard are among the aviation and rocketry recipients.
Senator Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 as part of the Mercury program. He left NASA and later became a U.S. Senator (1974-1999) and flew into space once more in 1998 at the close of his Senate career on a space shuttle mission (STS-95) at the age of 77. In his remarks, Glenn repeated comments he said he had made almost 50 years earlier when addressing a joint session of Congress after his Mercury mission: “As our knowledge of the universe in which we live increases, may God grant us the wisdom and guidance to use it wisely.”
Followng are links we were able to find to other comments made at the ceremony for the astronauts:
The Senate just passed the minibus appropriations bill (H.R. 2112), sending it on its way to the White House for signature.
The bill funds NASA, NOAA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation among many other agencies.
The vote was 70-30.
The bill also includes a new Continuing Resolution to fund the rest of the government through December 16.
This is good news for the agencies included in the minibus. Whether or not they like what Congress did, they at least know how much money they have to work with in FY2012.
UPDATE: The Senate Appropriations Committee just tweeted that the Senate is scheduled to pass this bill tonight between 7:00 and 7:30 pm, instead of tomorrow.
ORIGINAL STORY
The “minibus” appropriations bill that includes NASA, NOAA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) passed the House this afternoon.
The vote was 298-121.
The bill, H.R. 2112, combines three FY2012 appropriations bills: Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS), and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD). NASA, NOAA and OSTP are in the CJS bill; FAA and its AST are in the T-HUD bill.
Information on funding levels for NASA that are contained in the bill are shown in our NASA FY2012 budget request Fact Sheet. Overall, the agency received $17.8 billion, $924 million below the President’s request, but about $1 billion more than the House Appropriations Committee approved earlier this year.
NOAA received $924 million for its Joint Polar Satellite System compared to its request of $1.07 billion. The bill does not include funding for NOAA to reorganize internally and create a NOAA Climate Service as the administration requested. Overall, the bill provides NOAA with $4.9 billion, a cut of $582 million from the President’s request, but $400 million more than the House Appropriations Committee approved.
OSTP received $4.5 million, instead of the $6.65 million requested, and the bill includes language prohibiting NASA or OSTP from engaging with China unless certain conditions are met. The House Appropriations Committee had approved cutting OSTP even more (to $3 million) to punish OSTP Director John Holdren for meeting with Chinese officials even though the FY2011 appropriations bill prohibited such meetings without congressional authorization.
FAA’s AST received $16.3 million, just over half of the $26.6 million request, but $3.3 million more than the House Appropriations T-HUD subcommittee recommended.
The House never voted on the CJS or T-HUD bills. The CJS bill was reported from the House Appropriations Committee (H. Rept. 112-169), but theT-HUD bill did not get even that far. It was acted upon only at subcommittee level in the House. Nonetheless, the House and Senate agreed to negotiate over the final spending levels in the Senate-passed version of H.R. 2112, expediting the bill’s route through Congress.
The Senate is expected to approve the bill tomorrow, which would give certainty to the agencies it covers as to their FY2012 funding levels. The rest of the government, however, would continue to be funded under a new Continuing Resolution (CR). The current CR expires tomorrow. The new CR is included in H.R. 2112 and funds the remaining government agencies, including DOD, through December 16, 2011.
The President is expected to sign the bill tomorrow as well, since the current CR expires at midnight Friday.
UPDATE: We now have updated our NASA FY2012 budget request fact sheet, and an article with more info on NOAA and FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is available as well.
All things considered, NASA, and NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program, fared pretty well in the final version of the “minibus” appropriations bill (H.R. 2112), which is now posted on the website of the House Appropriations Committee.
The final numbers are very close to what the Senate approved. NASA would get $17.8 billion for FY2012, and while that is $924 million less than the $18.7 billion request, it is about $1 billion more than the House Appropriations Committee approved. The Senate approved $17.9 billion. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be funded with the additional amount approved by the Senate, instead of terminated as recommended by the House committee.
NOAA’s JPSS environmental satellite program will get $924 million, compared to the $1.07 billion request. The House committee had approved $901 million, while the Senate approved $920 million.
We will have more details and an updated fact sheet later today.
NASA has announced a media briefing tomorrow, November 16, on new science discoveries about Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
Europa is a fascinating celestial object. One of Jupiter’s “icy moons,” some scientists theorize that its icy surface hides a liquid ocean that might harbor life. The briefing is at 1:00 pm EST in the auditorium at NASA Headquarters and will be webcast on NASA TV. Participants are:
– Britney Schmidt, postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas at Austin
– Tori Hoehler, astrobiologist and senior research scientist, NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
– Louise Prockter, planetary scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md.
– Tom Wagner, program scientist, cryospheric sciences, Earth Science Division, NASA Headquarters
The “minibus” appropriations bill that includes NASA, NOAA and the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is on track for passage by Friday when the current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires. Conferees reported the bill late yesterday. The House Rules Committee will consider the rule to accompany the bill (allowing for its consideration by the full House) on Wednesday at 2:00 pm EST.
The bill, H.R. 2112, combines three FY2012 appropriations bills into one: the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that includes NASA and NOAA, the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) bill that includes the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the Agriculture bill. Although the House never passed its own versions of the CJS or T-HUD bills — in fact, the T-HUD bill was not even reported from the House Appropriations Committee — it agreed to negotiate a final version of the FY2012 appropriations for these agencies with the Senate.
NASA, NOAA’s JPSS satellite program, and FAA’s AST fared pretty well in the conference agreement, which is published in the November 14 Congressional Record. In brief:
Another controversy in the CJS bill was funding for the White House Office of Science and Technolology Policy (OSTP). The House committee had approved cutting the $6.65 million request down to $3 million because of its displeasure over OSTP Director John Holdren meeting with Chinese officials after language in the FY2011 appropriations bill prohibited OSTP or NASA from spending any funds to engage with China. The conference agreement funds OSTP at $4.5 million and again includes language (sec. 539) prohibiting OSTP or NASA from engaging with China. However, this year there are exceptions to that prohibition whereby either agency can certify to Congress 14 days in advance of any such activity that it poses “no risk of resulting in the transfer of technology, data, or other information with national security or economic security implications.”
“Minibus” is a clever term used to refer to several appropriations bills — but not all 12 of them — being combined into a single piece of legislation. When all 12 are merged together, it is called an “omnibus.”
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has announced the witnesses for its hearing on Thursday concerning NASA’s human space exploration program. All are from NASA.
The hearing, “NASA’s Human Space Exploration: Direction, Strategy, and Progress,” is being convened by the Science and Space subcommittee chaired by Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL). According to the committee’s website: “At this hearing, the Subcommittee will consider NASA’s plans for human exploration, including the programs, projects, and activities for developing the Space Launch System, crew vehicle, and ground support. This hearing will provide an opportunity to articulate NASA’s goals for human exploration and how they complement International Space Station support and utilization, technology development, international collaboration, and commercial activities.”
Panel 1 consists only of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Panel 2 consists of three NASA center directors: Robert Cabana, Kennedy Space Center; Michael Coats, Johnon Space Center; and Robert Lightfoot, Marshall Space Flight Center.
The hearing begins at 10:00 am EST and will be webcast on the committee’s website.