The FY2011 appropriaions process is still on hold waiting for the House and Senate to pass an actual budget resolution or a “deeming resolution” instead. The budget resolution sets the amount of funding that each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees is allowed to spend.

As the Memorial Day recess neared, rumors were that the Senate would pass something before the July 4th recess. However, Congress Daily (subscription required) is reporting that Senate Budget Committee chaiman Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) no longer is optimistic that it can be accomplished by then. The Senate Budget Committee agreed to a 5-year budget resolution in April, but ran into difficulty getting the bill to the floor because of higher prioirty legislation. The committee-passed resolution would reduce the deficit by 70% by FY2015 according to Congress Daily.

Action in the House has been even slower than in the Senate. Members of the leadership in both chambers now say that they are likely to pass only those appropriations bills associated with national security before the November elections. Those would be the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Military Construction-VA bills. The other nine bills, including the one that funds NASA (Commerce-Justice-Science), would not be passed until sometime thereafter.

Absent action on a CJS bill, Congress could include language in any of the three bills that are expected to pass by November, or in a supplemental appropriations bill, resolving whether NASA must continue to spend funds on the Constellation program as directed in the FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act. Or they may not. The expectation is that Congress and the White House will reach a compromise, but the features of that comproise are anyone’s guess at this point.

The following events may be of interest in the coming week. For more details, see our calendar on the right menu or click the links below. Times, dates and topics for congressional busness meetings are subject to change; check the committee’s website for up to date information. All times are EDT.

Tuesday, June 8

• 2010 Space Weather Enterprise Forum, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm, National Press Club

Wednesday, June 9

• Forum on Earth Observations IV, 8:30 am – 5:30 pm, Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill
• Senate Commerce Committee Business Meeting, including vote on Carl Weiman to be Associate Director for Science at OSTP, beginning at 2:30 pm, 253 Russell Senate Office Building

Wednesday June 9 – Friday, June 18

• U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria

NASA has a nifty way for people to feel they are part of the last two scheduled space shuttle flights — fly your Face into Space. You can upload your name and a photo of yourself that you can resize to fit in the shuttle’s window. Choose whether you want it to go on STS-133 or STS-134 and check back after the flight to print out a Flight Certificate.

The Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) of the National Research Council has an opening for a Program Officer. Here’s a link to the NRC posting. Program officers are mid-career professionals who serve as study directors, facilitating the work of NRC committees that write reports such as those listed on the left menu of our website. Some say the job is akin to herding cats, but it actually can be a lot of fun and you get to work with some of the country’s leading experts in aeronautics and space — and your NRC colleagues are terrific to work with (though I admit I have a very biased viewpoint on that)!!

The Space Studies Board (SSB) at the National Research Council is about to begin a new Decadal Survey for solar and space physics. This will be the second in this discipline. The first was published in 2003. SSB Senior Program Officer Art Charo will be the study director for this one as he was for the first.

A website has been established for the study where you can learn about its parameters and nominate someone (including yourself) to serve on the steering committee or one the panels. Decadal Surveys typically take two years to complete. The steering committee is expected to hold five meetings in 2010-2011 and each of the three panels (Solar & Heliosphere Physics, Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interactions, and Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere Interactions) will meet three times in 2010-2011.

The Decadal Survey is intended to prioritize research for the 2013-2022 time frame, so presumably will have to be completed in time to influence FY2013 budget decisions, which would be sometime before August 2011.

The NRC is at the end stages of the Astro2010 Decadal Survey for ground- and space-based astronomy and astrophysics. Decadal Surveys for Planetary Science, and for Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, also are underway.

To help you keep track of our Summer Reading List, we’ve added it to our left menu under “Other Links.” Enjoy!

According to a notice on NASA TV, the briefing by Charlie Bolden and Secretary of Commerce Locke will now be at 10:30 instead of 10:00. Unless it’s really short, it will end up conflicting with the Falcon 9 launch at 11:00.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke will provide an update on the work of their task force that was created in response to President Obama’s April 15 promise to spend $40 million to help space workers along Florida’s space coast. The event starts at 10:00 am EDT and will be held at the Orlando Airport Hyatt Hotel in Orlando, FL. It can be viewed on NASA TV.

Representative Parker Griffith (R-AL), who represents Huntsville, AL, lost his Republican primary battle yesterday. Rep. Griffith was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 2008, but switched to the Republican party in 2009.

When he was a Democrat, he was a member of the House Science and Technology Committee. He lost that seat when he switched parties, but continued to attend some NASA-related hearings as a non-member, supporting the Constellation program. He lost the Republican primary decisively, 51 percent to 33 percent.

UPDATE: The Soyuz landed safely at 11:25 pm EDT today (9:25 am June 2 in Kazakhstan).

ORIGINAL STORY: Soyuz TMA-17 is on its way home. The spacecraft carrying threeof the six International Space Station (ISS) crew members undocked from the ISS at 8:04 pm EDT. Landing will be at 11:24 pm EDT in Kazakhstan. Live coverage is available right now on NASA TV.