The Soyuz spacecraft that should have brought three International Space Station (ISS) crew members home failed to undock last night.

According to NASA, “The planned undocking was prevented when commands being sent to disengage the hooks and latches holding the Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft failed.” Engineers are troubleshooting the problem and another attempt is scheduled for tonight at 10:02 pm EDT.

Soyuz spacecraft will soon become the only way for astronauts to come and go from the ISS once the space shuttle is retired. It also is the only crew rescue vehicle — lifeboat — that is supposed to be able to quickly take ISS crew members away from the ISS in an emergency. This failure to undock is a serious problem.

NASA reports that the three ISS crew members who tried to return to Earth last night but could not because the Soyuz would not undock from the space station will try again tonight at 10:02 pm EDT. Following is NASA’s explanation of what happened and how they think they have solved it.

“The first undocking attempt Thursday was delayed after hooks failed to open and mission controllers in Moscow had not received the expected hatch locked signal from the Poisk module [where the Soyuz is docked].

“Though leak checks between the station and the Soyuz were good, commands to open hooks between the station and the Soyuz were not received….

“Flight Engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin encountered some resistance Thursday night when closing the Poisk module hatch. He began troubleshooting the hatch when commands to open the hooks on the Poisk docking interface were not received. He discovered a loose star-shaped sprocket with two broken teeth behind the hatch cover.

“To re-initiate the “hatch locked” signal, Yurchikhin installed jumper cables to bypass a component in the docking mechanism. This allowed the hooks on Poisk to be opened overnight which will allow the Soyuz TMA-18 to undock when hooks on the Soyuz are commanded open.”

If undocking is successful, the crew will land at 1:21 am EDT tomorrow in Kazakhstan.

Three of the six crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will head home tonight. Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko and American Tracy Caldwell Dyson are scheduled to undock from the ISS at 9:35 pm EDT. Landing is expected at 12:55 am EDT in Kazakhstan.

NASA TV will cover the action live, as will Spaceflightnow.com.

That will leave three crew aboard the space station: Americans Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker, and Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin. They are due to be joined by Russians Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka and American Scott Kelly, whose Soyuz spacecraft is set to launch on October 7. They will dock with ISS two days later.

To follow ISS comings and goings, visit NASA’s ISS website.

Congress may not yet have voted on NOAA’s FY2011 appropriations bill, but NASA moved forward today with acquisition of the first satellite for NOAA’s restructured polar orbiting environmental satellite program. The first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft will be a clone of NASA’s NPOESS Preparatory Project satellite being built by Ball Aerospace, and the agency awarded a sole source control to Ball for JPSS-1. It is a firm fixed price contract for $248 million with a performance period through 2015; launch is expected in 2014.

In February, the White House announced that it was abandoning the Clinton-era policy of merging NOAA’s civil and DOD’s military polar-orbiting weather satellite programs and letting the agencies return to separate systems. The converged program, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) suffered repeated cost overruns and schedule delays for many reasons.

NOAA is proceeding with its new program, JPSS, with NASA as its acquisition agent. NASA was involved in the NPOESS program in a technology development role only; DOD was the acquisition agent. DOD’s portion of the new program is the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS). Congressional appropriators have expressed significant reservations about the future of JPSS and DWSS, but the need for moving quickly on JPSS-1 is not disputed. All of NOAA’s polar orbiting weather satellites already are in orbit, while DOD has two of its legacy satellites awaiting launch when needed.

Few reports from the National Academies have had as much impact as the 2005 “Rising Above the Gathering Storm.” A clarion call to the country about the waning U.S. ability to compete globally because of inadequate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and federal funding for basic research, the report catalyzed action from both the White House and Congress. Today the National Academies released a report assessing what has happened in the intervening 5 years.

Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 concludes that America’s ability to compete has deteriorated since the original report was released, according to a press release. Progress in the United States due to the 2007 America COMPETES Act, which authorized solutions to some of the recommendations of the original report and is now awaiting reauthorization in Congress, was more than matched by progress in other countries, the study committee found. Acknowledging the difficulty of doubling government basic research budgets, as recommended in the original report, during the current economic downturn, the report nonetheless cautions that “such investments will need to be made if the nation is to maintain the economic strength to provide health care, social security, national security, and other basic services to its citizens.”

The National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, along with the National Research Council, comprise the National Academies. The study was funded by the Academies. Unfortunately one must pay to get even a PDF copy of the full report, but a PDF of the executive summary can be downloaded for free.

NASA was omitted from the original report to the consternation of space program advocates who point out that NASA is very much involved in basic research and STEM education. There is no mention of NASA in the executive summary of the new report either.

UPDATE: This is updated to reflect House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon’s comments.

The House Science and Technology Committee reportedly has reached agreement on a new version of the FY2011-2013 NASA authorization bill. Here are the text of the “amendment in the nature of a substitute,” which means a replacement for what was introduced earlier that will be taken up by the House as an amendment to the original bill, and a short summary provided to SpacePolicyOnline.com.

House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) said the following:

“This is House compromise language, with bipartisan support. It reflects months of discussions and input from many Members. As a result, we believe we have a bill that both builds on and improves on H.R. 5781, the NASA Authorization Act that was marked up by the Science and Technology Committee earlier this year. Moreover, we believe this compromise helps move the discussion about the future of NASA closer to a final product.

This is a good, bipartisan, and fiscally responsible bill. For too long, NASA has not been given the resources to complete the many missions the nation has asked of it. NASA is too important to the nation to continue on that path. This will provide a clear and sustainable direction for NASA, in light of the current fiscal environment.”

As reported earlier, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer included the NASA authorization bill on the list of legislation he plans to bring to the floor before the House leaves for the mid-term elections (likely the end of next week). If it passes the House, it would still have be voted on in the Senate. If the Senate were to agree without any changes, it could then go the President for signature. If the President agreed, it would become law. Those are a lot of “ifs,” but this is at least a step forward in the process.

Women in Aerospace (WIA) will honor this year’s award recipients on October 26, 2010 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Arlington, VA. The winners of the 25th annual WIA awards are:

• Achievement Award: Jill Lynette Hanna Price, NASA Langley Research Center
• Aerospace Awareness Award: Elizabeth Beck, NASA Headquarters
• Aerospace Educator Award: Prof. Alison Flatau, University of Maryland, College Park
• International Achivement Award: Donna Collins, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, TX
• Leadership Award:
  • Lesa Roe, Director, NASA Langley Research Center
  • Mina Samii, Computer Sciences Corporation, Lanham, MD
• Lifetime Achivement Award: Nancy Grace Roman, NASA (retired)
• Outstanding Member Award: Lori Garver, Deputy Administrator, NASA

For more details on the awards ceremony, visit WIA’s website.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) included the NASA authorization bill on his list of legislation the House plans to consider before it breaks for the mid-term elections according to news reports.

ABC News called Hoyer’s list “ambitious.” It also includes the Child Nutrition Bill and the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act — not to mention a Continuing Resolution to keep the government operating past September 30 when fiscal year 2010 ends. None of the FY2011 appropriations bills has passed Congress yet. Congress Daily (subscription required) added that an extension of Bush-era tax cuts also may come up.

Speculation is growing that both the House and Senate will adjourn at the end of next week rather than October 8 as earlier expected. Hoyer denied rumors that the House might go home at the end of this week.

NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) audited the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) program to determine if it was being effectively managed and came away primarily with praise. Its few qualifications had to do with how NASA charges non-NASA customers for using the system, but in terms of procuring the next two satellites in the series, K and L, the agency got a tip of the hat.

“Development of TDRS K and L is on schedule and meeting its planned budget. We found that NASA has managed the Project within cost, schedule, and performance requirements and Project managers implemented risk and earned value management (EVM) processes to monitor and mitigate programmatic risks associated with TDRSS development efforts. NASA also effectively administered the TDRSS development and support service contracts. However, we found that NASA has not revised the reimbursable rates it charges TDRSS customers since 2006 and that NASA officials did not know what factors were used to formulate the 2006 rates. Accordingly, NASA does not know whether the rates it has been charging customers during the past 4 years reflected current operating costs. We also found that internal controls for continuity of operations were not established, which led to the possible loss to NASA of reimbursable dollars.”

The report noted that it had received a complaint that Boeing low-balled its bid to build the TDRSS satellites and later raised the price through contract modifications. The OIG determined that although Boeing received 13 waivers after the contract was awarded, they “did not alleviate Boeing from performing any of the technical requirements and did not affect the price of the contract.” The cost of the contract did, indeed, increase, the OIG found, but only because of changes sought by NASA. “Accordingly, we found no evidence to support the allegation that Boeing ‘low bid’ the contract in order to win the award and subsequently increased the cost through contract modifications.”

NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has cleared NASA Administrator Bolden of violating ethics laws or regulations regarding a phone call he made to an official of Marathon Oil, a company in which he has a financial interest. However, the IG report said that Bolden’s actions “raised concerns about an appearance of a conflict of interest” and disagreed “with the determination made by NASA attorneys that it was not necessary to report Bolden’s contact with Marathon to OIG.”

The matter involved a conversation Bolden had with a Marathon Oil official regarding algae-based fuels while NASA was considering whether to fund a project called Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae (OMEGA). The OIG report says that Bolden has $500,000-$1 million of Marathon stock and had served on its Board of Directors for six years prior to becoming Administrator. The report noted that “When interviewed by the OIG about this matter, Bolden readily acknowledged that he had erred in contacting Marathon. Bolden said he has since recused himself from issues involving OMEGA and has received supplemental training regarding his ethical responsibilities.”