The Commercial Spaceflight Federation announced yesterday that Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) is hosting an event for Senators and their staff today that is open to the media. It features Norm Augustine, chair of last year’s Augustine Committee that provided options for the future of human spaceflight. Other participants are Ken Bowersox, SpaceX; George Sowers, United Launch Alliance; William Claybaugh, Orbital Sciences Corp.; and Mark Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada. It will be in room 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building from 10:30-12:00.

On Wednesday, the House passed the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense (GRID) Act, H.R. 5026 (H. Rept. 111-493), whose purpose is to protect the U.S. bulk-power system and electric infrastructure. Cybersecurity and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats and vulnerabilities are addressed in the bill. The EMP vulnerabilities include severe space weather events, or “geomagnetic storms” as they are called in the bill.

Space weather refers to the effects on Earth and its environs of the Sun’s “coronal mass ejections” – more commonly known as solar flares. It has long been known that solar flares disrupt high frequency radio communications, but they can also disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field causing voltages in electric transmission lines that can damage the large transformers that are critical components of the electric grid. A 1989 power outage that affected a large swath of northeastern Canada was caused by such an event.

With the world increasingly dependent on terrestrial electrical power grids, as well as terrestrial and space-based communications systems and satellite-based navigation and timing (GPS), the consequences of severe space weather events could be catastrophic. The National Research Council published a report in 2008 describing the potential societal and economic effects of severe space weather events and asked whether U.S. institutions are prepared “to cope with the effects of a ‘space weather Katrina,’ a rare, but according to historical records, not inconceivable eventuality?”

The GRID bill focuses on the electric grid only. Among its provisions is directing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), through its electric reliability organization, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), to establish a reliability standard to protect the bulk power system from geomagnetic storms. FERC must “identify the nature and magnitude of the reasonably foreseeable geomagnetic storm events against which the standards should protect, similar to the identification of a ‘design basis threat.’ The standards must balance risks against the cost of protecting against those risks.”

At a meeting on space weather issues Tuesday, Dr. Chris Beck, a staff member for the House Homeland Security Committee, noted that there is no companion bill in the Senate. With the Senate moving slowly on most legislation, he does not expect the bill to reach the Senate floor, but was relatively optimistic that it might be incorporated into an appropriations bill.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) announced today that Ralph Semmel will be the new APL Director, replacing Ralph Roca. Dr. Semmel has been with APL for 23 years, and for the past five headed the Applied Information Sciences Department. He is the eighth director in the Lab’s 68-year history.

Hotel magnate and space entrepreneur Robert Bigelow is the only non-NASA customer for commercial human spaceflight to low Earth orbit according to the New York Times. The newspaper quotes Bigelow as saying that “nobody” is his competition.

Bigelow Aerospace has launched two experimental inflatable space modules already and plans to launch its first “real” modules in four years, creating the first private space station. In a rare interview about his spaceflight plans, Bigelow told the newspaper that his company plans to assemble a second space station in 2016. The two together could house 36 people “providing ample business for the private companies” championed by the Obama Administration is its plan for the future of U.S. human spaceflight. The newspaper adds that the “soundness of the business case is unknown to outsiders.”

In a media teleconference today, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that he feels there is about a 75 percent chance that the first launch of Falcon 9 will succeed tomorrow. He stressed that if it fails, that should not be interpreted as a failure of the commercial space launch industry. Indeed, he insists that the future of the space program depends on commercial companies like his because the government simply does not have the money to continue with the space program as it has in the past.

The four hour launch window opens at 11:00 am EDT tomorrow. Saturday has been reserved for a second attempt in case anything goes awry, like the weather.

In response to a question about how much has been invested in Falcon 9, Musk said that it is impossible to separate Falcon 9 from Falcon 1 since so many aspects of it are the same, such as the Merlin engine, avionics, software, and ground support equipment. He said that SpaceX has invested a total of $350-400 million total to date for all versions of the Falcon and associated technology and launch site infrastructure.

He also stressed that complete reusability is his goal, although recovery will be attempted only of the first stage of Falcon 9 on this flight. For the future, though, he commented that “I would not consider SpaceX a complete success unless we get complete reusability.”

A reporter asked if he felt that SpaceX was a political football, and Musk answered “Yes, we’re a political punching bag, a whipping boy,” adding that it was unfortunate. Opponents have taken aim at SpaceX while ignoring the Atlas and Delta, he said.

He also clarified that recent media stories about a delay between the launch of the first and second COTS demonstration flights missed the important point that what SpaceX is really trying to do is accelerate the demonstration of delivering cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The plan was for three demonstration flights, with the third actually berthing with the ISS to deliver cargo. He now wants to do that on the second demonstration flight instead, and the third flight would be used as a backup if the second flight was not fully successful. NASA has not yet approved the new plan, however, he added.

As for the flight tomorrow, SpaceX is aiming for a 250 mile circular orbit due east out of Cape Canaveral. Musk repeated what the company put out in a press release yesterday that they will consider it a good day if only the first stage flies as planned; it would be a “great” day if the first and second stages performed correctly and the payload reached orbit.

SpaceX has just released the press kit for the Falcon 9 launch this morning. Spaceflightnow.com has good coverage of the launch preparations and is currently noting that the 11:00 launch is in a race against bad weather that’s coming in. SpaceX is supposed to show the launch on its website, too, but I can’t get into the site.

UPDATE 6: Second stage shutdown is nominal. Everything’s looking good. Congratulations SpaceX!

UPDATE 5: Stage separation is successful.

UPDATE 4: Falcon 9 is off!

UPDATE 3: SpaceX has resolved the problem and launch is now scheduled for 2:45 pm.

UPDATE2: The Falcon 9 had a launch abort seconds before launch.

UPDATE: Launch is expected at 1:30. Watch live at SpaceX or Spaceflightnow.com.

ORIGINAL STORY: We are still awaiting the first launch of Falcon 9. Earlier problems have been resolved, but now a sailboat is “in the box” — the prohibited area off of Cape Canaveral (for launch safety reasons). Launch now will happen no earlier than 1:30 pm.

The first flight of the SpaceX Falcon 9 is still set for Friday a company spokeswoman, Emily Shanklin, said in an email tonight. The four-hour launch window opens at 11:00 am EDT. The next day has been reserved for a second attempt if needed. Weather is forecast to be 40% no go at this time, according to Shanklin.

Apparently hoping to dampen expectations for this much anticipated flight, the email emphasizes that the goal is to gather flight data and

“It would be a great day if we reached orbital velocity, but still a good day if the first stage functions correctly, even if the second stage malfunctions. It would be a bad day if something happens on the launch pad itself and we’re not able to gain any flight data.

“If we have a bad day, it will be disappointing, but one launch does not make or break SpaceX as a company, nor commercial spaceflight as an industry….”

The first launch of Falcon 9 has been delayed to no earlier than June 2/3 according to an email from SpaceX’s Emily Shanklin. She writes that delays in the launch of the Delta 4 (carrying a GPS satellite) have “taken up a lot of resources at the Cape and in turn pushed” back the Falcon 9 launch. It’s most recent launch date was May 28/29.

Felix Baumgartner, the first person to cross the English Channel on a carbon wing, will attempt to become the first human to break the speed of sound this summer in New Mexico. As we reported in an earlier story, Baumgartner and the team of the Red Bull Stratos Initiative expect to provide important scientific and medical data to bolster the commercial space industry, but the precise date of the jump has not been revealed.

CNN reports that Baumgartner will first ride a helium balloon to the record altitude of 120,000 feet above sea level. At that point, he will jump out and free fall back to Earth at about 690 miles an hour, breaking the speed of sound.

The team has taken several measures to increase Baumgartner’s chance of survival, such as dressing him up in a pressurized suit and an “advanced helmet,” and providing oxygen tanks and an automatic parachute for the ride.

Apart from breaking at least four records, the test is aimed to provide answers to the conditions from which humans – including humans on suborbital flights – could return to Earth in a situation where their vehicle becomes unusable or dangerous. “In the future, a lot more tourists will go and travel to space. And if something goes wrong with their spacecraft, they have to return to Earth somehow. We will show to the world that egress from high altitude is survivable,” CNN quoted Baumgartner as saying.