Category: Commercial

Compromise Commercial Space Bill Passes House — Next Stop, the President

Compromise Commercial Space Bill Passes House — Next Stop, the President

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 16, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 25, 2015 9:53 pm ET

UPDATE, November 25, 2015:  The President signed the bill into law today.

ORIGINAL STORY, November 16, 2015: The compromise version of new commercial space legislation passed the House this evening, clearing the measure for the President.  The bill, H.R. 2262, covers a broad range of commercial space policy issues from third party indemnification to asteroid mining.

The compromise bill, which retains the House number following negotiations on House- and Senate-passed versions of the bill, includes the following provisions:

  • Formally extends operation of the International Space Station from 2020 through 2024.  President Obama announced last year that
    he was extending it until then, but this will make it law.  Canada and
    Russia have agreed with the extension; Japan and Europe have not
    publicly endorsed the extension yet.
  • Extends the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight
    through September 30, 2023.  Under current law, the prohibition on the
    FAA promulgating new regulations for the commercial human spaceflight
    business expires on March 31, 2016.
  • Extends third party indemnification for launch services
    companies through September 30, 2025.  Under current law, the authority
    for the FAA to indemnify commercial space launch companies from certain
    amounts of claims from the uninvolved public in the event of a launch
    accident expires on December 31, 2016.
  • Directs the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
    (OSTP) to assess and recommend approaches for oversight of commercial
    non-governmental activities in space.  The 1967 Outer Space Treaty
    requires governments to authorize and continually supervise the
    activities of their non-governmental entities.
  • Establishes a legal right to resources U.S. citizens obtain from
    asteroids consistent with current law and international obligations. 
    Directs the President to facilitate and promote space resource
    exploration and recovery.
  • Provides a use policy for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).  SLS
    may be used for missions to extend human presence beyond low Earth
    orbit (LEO), for other payloads that can benefit from its unique
    capabilities, for government or educational payloads consistent with
    NASA’s mission to explore beyond LEO, and for “compelling circumstances”
    as determined by the NASA Administrator.

The original version of HR. 2262 passed the House in May.  The Senate version, which was quite different, passed in August.  The two chambers have been working out their differences ever since.  This final version passed the Senate last week.

The House version combined four separate pieces of legislation that cleared the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee in May.  It was collectively named the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act when it passed the House.  The Senate bill, S. 1297, was more narrowly cast in some respects, although it included a provision extending operations of the International Space Station until at least 2024.

The bill passed the House today by voice vote under suspension of the rules and now goes to the President for signature.

The lead sponsor of the House version is House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) whose district includes the Mojave Air & Space Port.  He said the bill “ensures America remains the leader in space exploration and innovation in the 21st century.”   House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Space Subcommittee chairman Brian Babin (R-TX) echoed those sentiments.

Among the organizations applauding passage of the bill are the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) and Deep Space Industries (DSI).  CSF called the bill “one of the most significant modernizations of commercial space policy and regulatory legislation” since the 1984 Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA).  DSI, one of two entrepreneurial companies seeking to clarify rights to resources mined from asteroids, also praised passage of the bill.  DSI Chair Rick Tumlinson said it “builds on our national space legacy and will help enable the rapid and sustainable growth of America’s space economy.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), who led efforts to obtain Senate approval of the compromise last week, today called it “a new era for our commercial ventures in space, which will likely include the development of new drugs, the possibility of mining asteroids and an explosion of new technology as we advance our outreach in space.”

Last Updated: Nov 25, 2015 9:53 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy November 16-20, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy November 16-20, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 14, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 14, 2015 7:18 am ET

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of November 16-20, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The House may take up the compromise commercial space bill (H.R. 2262) on Monday.   It passed the Senate on November 10.   It is a broad bill that deals not only with traditional commercial space issues like third party indemnification (extending the FAA’s authority through 2025) and the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight (extending the prohibition on new FAA regulations until 2023), but new ones like asteroid mining.  This version is a compromise between the bill that passed the House in May and a bill that passed the Senate in August (S. 1297).  The lead sponsor of the House version is House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who represents the district that includes the Mojave Air and Space Port.   Assuming the bill passes the House, it then will go to the President for signature.

The President could sign the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week, although the bill has not officially been presented to him yet.  It can take a couple of days for clerks to look through the bill and make any necessary “technical and conforming changes” before sending it on to the White House.  The Senate passed it on November 10 (the House did so on November 5).

On Thursday, United Launch Alliance (ULA) will announce what it calls a “new program that will transform the way our nation’s CubeSats are launched.”   The announcement (which will be webcast) will take place at the Colorado State Capitol with the State’s Lieutenant Governor participating.  Both the President and the Chancellor of the University of Colorado also will join ULA President Tory Bruno on stage.  ULA is headquartered in Colorado.

Those and other events we know about as of Saturday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for updates to our Events of Interest list on our home page.

Tuesday, November 17

Tuesday-Wednesday, November 17-18

Tuesday-Thursday, November 17-19

Wednesday, November 18

Thursday, November 19

Friday, November 20

Last Updated: Nov 14, 2015 7:18 am ET
What's Happening in Space Policy November 9-13, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy November 9-13, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 8, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 8, 2015 3:13 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of November 9-13, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate is in session this week except for Wednesday (Veterans Day, a federal holiday). The House is in recess all week.

During the Week

NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman will become more widely known in the DC-area space community this week as she speaks at two luncheons — the Maryland Space Business Roundtable on Tuesday in Greenbelt, MD, and the Washington Space Business Roundtable on Thursday in Washington, DC.   She also will speak to the annual meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research on Wednesday morning at 8:30 am ET (will be webcast — h/t to NASAWatch’s Keith Cowing for bringing it to our attention).  These are not her first public speeches since being sworn in last May, but she has kept a relatively low profile until now. Should be interesting to hear what she has to say, though it’s easy to guess that NASA’s “Journey to Mars” and “inspiration” slogans will be repeatedly repeated.

The American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) holds its annual meeting this week at National Harbor, MD, just outside Washington, DC.   DPS is the key event where planetary scientists announce new discoveries and with all that’s been going on this year, it should be a treasure trove of news throughout the week.  Press briefings are scheduled Monday-Thursday at lunchtime and although the live webcasts are only available to journalists, they will be archived and then anyone can watch them.   On Friday, DPS chair Bonnie Buratti (JPL) will moderate a lunch-time briefing on Capitol Hill (385 Russell) to highlight key findings, with New Horizons PI Alan Stern, NEOWISE PI Amy Mainzer, and Georgia Tech graduate student Mary Beth Wilhelm who studies biomarkers on Mars and is a science team collaborator for the Curiosity mission.

On Capitol Hill, the House is taking the week off, but the Senate will be hard at work except for Veterans Day (Wednesday).  On Tuesday, it plans to vote on the revised version of the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).   President Obama vetoed the original bill in large part because of a “gimmick” used by Republicans to add money for defense without increasing funds for non-defense activities.  Now that the White House and Congress have agreed to the budget/debt limit bill, the NDAA has been revised to fit within those funding caps by cutting $5 billion.  The new bill, S. 1356, passed the House on Friday.  The policy provisions remain the same and the President objected to two of them in his veto message (that the bill prevented needed reforms and did not allow the closing of Guantanamo), but the White House has not issued a new veto threat on the revised bill.

The NDAA is an authorization bill that sets policy and recommends funding levels.  Only appropriations bills actually give money to agencies, and Senate Democrats blocked consideration of the defense appropriations bill last week because of concern that if that bill moves forward on its own, Republicans might not pass the non-defense appropriations bills and force the rest of the government to operate under a year-long Continuing Resolution (CR) instead.  The current CR expires on December 11, so they have that much time to reach agreement or a new CR, either short- or long-term, will be needed.  The House is scheduled to be in session for only 12 days between now and then.  The Senate plans to be in session throughout that period except for the week of Thanksgiving (November 23-27).

The fate of the Export-Import Bank is now in the hands of conferees on H.R. 22, the surface transportation bill that passed the House last week.  The House has already appointed some conferees, but said more will be appointed in the future.  The Senate has not appointed its conferees yet.  The main purpose of the bill is to fund transportation infrastructure projects (highways, rail, etc) that currently are authorized only through November 20, so there is some urgency to get the bill finalized.  We have reported on the  travails of the Export-Import Bank at length, so will not repeat its tortuous history here.  If you need to catch up on what’s been going, type Export-Import Bank into the search box at the top of our main page.

The Senate might also take up the compromise version of the Commercial Space Transportation Competitiveness bill, but Sen. Bill Nelson’s optimism a week and a half ago that it would be acted on quickly seems to have run into a snag.

All the events we know about as of Sunday morning for the coming week are listed below.  Check back throughout the week to see any new events that get added to our Events of Interest list.

Sunday-Friday, November 8-13

Monday, November 9

Monday-Friday, November 9-13

Tuesday, November 10

Tuesday-Thursday, November 10-12

Wednesday-Saturday, November 11-14

Thursday, November 12

Thursday-Friday, November 12-13

Friday, November 13

Note:  This article was updated with the information about the ASGSR meeting.

Last Updated: Nov 08, 2015 3:13 pm ET
Export-Import Bank Survives More House Votes – UPDATE 2

Export-Import Bank Survives More House Votes – UPDATE 2

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 5, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 10, 2015 6:48 pm ET

UPDATE, November 10, 2015:  The House and Senate now have each appointed conferees on the bill; the House on November 5 and the Senate today.  The House said that it may appoint additional conferees subsequently.

UPDATE, NOVEMBER 5, 2015, 12:01 pm ET:  The House now has passed H.R. 22 (371-54), which includes the Export-Import Bank reauthorization. The Senate now must agree to the House changes to the entire bill or the two sides will set up a conference committee to negotiate a final compromise version.  Each side then would have to approve the compromise.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE, NOVEMBER 5, 2015, 7:45 am ET:  A week after the House voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, the issue was back on the House floor last night as opponents tried again to restrict the Bank’s activities.  After intense debate, 10 amendments ultimately were defeated, however.

Created in 1934, the Bank needs to be periodically reauthorized, a step
taken with little notice until recently.  The Bank helps provide
financing for U.S. exports, including
communications satellites, for example.  The Aerospace Industries
Association (AIA) and the Satellite Industry Association are among its
supporters.  The Bank has not been able to issue new loans since its authorization expired on June 30, 2015.  AIA reports that U.S. companies have lost three contracts to build satellites since then.

Some very conservative Republicans and very liberal Democrats oppose the Bank because they consider it corporate welfare for a few large companies like Boeing and GE.  Supporters argue it is a critical component in the competitiveness of U.S. companies that compete against foreign companies with access to similar lending organizations in their countries.  Supporters have consistently argued that a large majority of House members support the Bank and its authorization lapsed only because a small group of powerful Republicans were preventing the full House from voting on the issue.  Last week, a group of Republicans who support the Bank, led by Rep. Steve Fincher (R-TN), used a rare parliamentary procedure to move a bill (H.R. 597) out of the Financial Services Committee against the objections of its chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).  After fractious debate, the House voted decisively 313-118 to put the Bank back in business with support from a majority of Republicans and Democrats.

The Senate still would have to act on that bill, however, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who opposes the Bank, has said he will not move a stand-alone bill.  Instead he will allow the Senate to consider the issue only as part of a larger measure.  Indeed, in July the Senate passed a surface transportation bill that includes reauthorizing the Bank through 2019. 

The Senate action was taken by amending a House-passed Surface Transportation bill, H.R. 22.  The House refused to take up the Senate version of the bill at that time, but now is doing so. 

(The underlying bill addresses issues unrelated to the Export-Import Bank, but they are just as contentious.  Among them is reauthorizing expenditures from the Highway Trust Fund and since legislation to provide a long-term solution to that and other issues has not cleared both chambers, they have been passing short-term extensions instead.  The short-term extensions do not include the Export-Import Bank provisions.  The most recent, passed last week, extends the Highway Trust Fund authorization through November 20.   Congress presumably will try to get work on H.R. 22 completed before then to avoid the need for another short-term extension.)

Opponents of the Bank offered 10 amendments last night to restrict the Bank’s activities, reopening the debate supporters thought they had put to rest last week.  The coalition of Republicans and Democrats that supports the Bank held together and defeated those amendments by votes almost as definitive as the one last week.

The House was in session until 1:05 am this morning (Thursday) debating those and other issues.  It will reconvene at 9:00 am this morning to continue debate.  The House is scheduled to recess at the end of today and remain in recess next week.

The bill still must go back to the Senate and unless the Senate agrees with the House-passed text of the entire bill with no changes, the issue could arise again during conference negotiations.

For today, however, efforts to reopen the Bank have survived another round.

Last Updated: Nov 10, 2015 6:48 pm ET
NASA Again Delays Award of CRS2 Commercial Cargo Contracts; Boeing Out

NASA Again Delays Award of CRS2 Commercial Cargo Contracts; Boeing Out

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 5, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 5, 2015 3:09 pm ET

Today NASA was supposed to announce the winners of the second round of contracts to provide Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) to the International Space Station (ISS).  Instead, it announced a delay until no later than January 30, 2016.  But there will be fewer competitors.  Boeing has confirmed that it was eliminated from the competition.

NASA contracts with commercial companies to take cargo to ISS.  The first round of contracts went to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (now Orbital ATK) for missions through the end of 2016, and the contracts were later extended to cover missions in 2017 and early 2018.  Last year, NASA opened a second round called “CRS2”  for flights in 2018-2024. 

Because the selection process is underway, NASA is constrained in what information it can publicly release, including which companies submitted bids.  However, it is widely known that SpaceX, Orbital ATK, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) were bidders. The Wall Street Journal reported on October 1 that Lockheed Martin had been “quietly eliminated” from the competition because of price.

The CRS2 contract awards were supposed to be announced in June 2015, but were delayed to September and then to today.  NASA emailed the following statement to SpacePolicyOnline.com explaining the further delay:

“CRS2 is a complex procurement.  The anticipated award date has been revised to no later than January 30, 2016 to allow time to complete a thorough proposal evaluation and selection.  Since the Agency is in the process of evaluating proposals, we are in a procurement communications blackout.  For that reason, NASA cannot answer questions about this procurement at this time.”

This afternoon, Boeing confirmed to SpacePolicyOnline.com that it was notified by NASA that it has been eliminated from the competition.  In an email, Kelly Kaplan said the company is “confirming that we received a letter today letting us know we were eliminated.”   She had no further comment at this time.

That apparently leaves three companies in the running:  SNC, Orbital ATK and SpaceX.

SNC’s Krystal Scordo said via email that the company was notified this morning that “the Government has decided to re-open discussions with offerors” and “SNC was selected to re-open discussions.”

Orbital ATK’s Sean Wilson confirmed via email that the company is still competing for the CRS2 contract, but had no comment on the delay.  “We will continue to respond to any additional NASA requests for information” while remaining focused on completing its missions under the original CRS contract.

SpaceX’s John Taylor said the company had no comment on the delay.

SpaceX and Orbital ATK are both recovering from failures in their commercial cargo systems, Falcon 9/Dragon and Antares/Cygnus respectively. 

Orbital ATK will resume cargo flights using its Cygnus spacecraft, but launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket instead of Antares.  Two such launches are planned.  The first is on December 3, although Sam Scimemi, Director of the ISS program at NASA headquarters, told a NASA advisory committee today that the launch might be moved up one day.  Another Cygnus will launch on an Atlas V in March.  Antares itself, outfitted with different rocket engines, is expected to return to flight in May 2016 taking another Cygnus to ISS, with another launch planned for September-October, according to Orbital ATK President Dave Thompson.

Scimemi also said that the next SpaceX cargo launch to the ISS, SpaceX-8 (SpX-8), is scheduled for January 2016.  SpaceX plans at least one Falcon 9 launch before that to test changes to the system. SpaceX will launch a set of Orbcomm-2 communications satellites to low Earth orbit, but the company has not announced a date for that launch, saying in mid-October that it would take place in 6-8 weeks.  A launch of an SES communications satellite to geostationary orbit also may precede the cargo flight to ISS.

 

Last Updated: Nov 05, 2015 3:09 pm ET
International Space Station Reaches 15 Year Milestone

International Space Station Reaches 15 Year Milestone

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 2, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 2, 2015 9:21 pm ET

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the first crew’s arrival aboard the International Space Station (ISS).  At least two people have been aboard the facility ever since on roughly 6-month shifts — 15 years of permanent occupancy.   NASA, Russia and Japan heralded the event with a press conference with the six people currently aboard (two Americans, one Japanese and three Russians) and Administration and congressional stakeholders issued congratulatory statements.

In 1973, NASA launched its first space station, Skylab, but it hosted only three crews through 1974.  In 1979, Skylab made an uncontrolled reentry, spreading debris over Western Australia and the Indian Ocean.  During most of the 1970s, NASA was busy building the space shuttle as a “truck” that would go, among other places, to a permanently occupied space station in earth orbit.  Following the first space shuttle flight in 1981, building a permanent space station became the key goal of NASA Administrator James Beggs who took office under President Ronald Reagan.  Beggs convinced Reagan to initiate the program and Reagan announced it in his 1984 State of the Union Address.  The President said it would be built within a decade.  NASA told Congress it would cost $8 billion. 

The President directed NASA to invite other countries to join and Europe, Japan and Canada immediately signaled their interest, although it took three years to negotiate the first Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) that laid out roles and responsibilities.  In 1988, the United States, Canada, Japan and 11 European nations formally joined together to build Space Station Freedom.  By then, the pricetag had more than doubled and NASA was repeatedly redesigning it to reduce costs.

The United States was not quite in a space race with the Soviet Union at the time, but the geopolitical relationship was frosty.  President Reagan called the USSR the “evil empire” and initiated the Star Wars program to develop a layered ballistic missile defense system including space-based weapons platforms to defend the United States and its allies from Soviet missiles.

During that era, the Soviets were operating their seventh space station, Mir (Peace).  The first modular space station, Mir’s core module was launched in 1986 and it continued growing (albeit slowly) through the mid-1990s.  It was deorbited in 2001 after 15 years in space, but there were a few periods when no one was aboard, which is why the ISS wins the title for the first space station to boast 15 years of permanent occupancy.

The U.S.-Soviet relationship changed dramatically between 1989 and 1991 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

President George H.W. Bush used NASA’s human spaceflight program as a foreign policy tool during that period to warm relationships with the emerging Russian government.   He established the shuttle-Mir program where a Russian cosmonaut would fly on the U.S. space shuttle and an American astronaut would stay aboard Mir.  The Clinton-Gore Administration expanded that program with additional cosmonauts on the shuttle and Americans on Mir, but most significantly brought Russia in as another space station partner.  The Soviets had extensive experience in building and operating space stations, beginning with
Salyut 1 in 1971.  They successfully launched five more Salyuts — Salyut 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 (Salyut 2 was a failure)  — of increasing capability before beginning the Mir program.

NASA had announced another space station cost overrun just as President Clinton took office.  The White House directed NASA to conduct yet another redesign and the name Freedom was dropped.  What ultimately emerged from the redesign effort was similar to Freedom, but with the addition of Russian modules.   The new set of partners could not agree on a name and the facility has been known simply as the International Space Station ever since.

The history of the space station program could fill several books. (This SpacePolicyOnline.com editor  testified to the Senate Commerce Committee in 2005 — when working as a Congressional Research Service specialist — about the evolution of the space station’s rationale and expected uses.  The statement includes a table showing the various redesigns and cost estimates for anyone who wants a simplified account.)   In short, cost overruns and schedule delays turned the 10-year, $8 billion project into one that took 25 years and $60-100 billion (depending on how one counts the costs) to build, not including the costs paid by the other partners.

Currently, ISS consumes about $3 billion of NASA’s roughly $18 billion annual budget to operate.  The United States, Russia and Canada have agreed to keep it operating at least until 2024.  Japan and Europe have not officially signed on to that duration yet.  The question that permeates those discussions is whether the value of the ISS is worth the costs.

The ISS is a laboratory in space for conducting research on how the human body reacts to spaceflight conditions in preparation for long duration flights to Mars; technology demonstrations also related to achieving the humans-to-Mars goal; and scientific research that can benefit the people of Earth.  In assessing the value of the ISS, many space station advocates point to it as an incomparable engineering feat and an example of what countries can accomplish in space when they work together even when geopolitical relationships hit bumps in the road.  Taxpayers in the partner countries, however, often want something more tangible to show for their investment.  

After 44 years of performing research in space stations — from the 1970s to today — no major scientific breakthrough can be attributed to the ability to conduct experiments in a long-term microgravity environment.  Not that there has not been a great deal of research with interesting results — NASA maintains a website describing the experiments on ISS and the American Astronautical Society organizes annual ISS Research and Development conferences — but the “killer app” that compellingly demonstrates its worth remains elusive.

At $3 billion a year, even human spaceflight supporters may begin questioning the need for ISS if it constrains the pace at which new exploration goals, like sending people to Mars, can be achieved.  Some NASA officials including Bill Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, hope the commercial sector will step forward to build future earth orbiting space stations, not on the scale of the ISS, but smaller facilities for specialized purposes. Bigelow Aerospace is offering inflatable modules that could be used in orbit (one will be tested on the ISS next year), but no customers have been announced.  Other stakeholders warn against the United States losing its leadership in space and allowing China to take the lead in earth orbit.  China launched its first space station in 2011.  It is very small compared to even the earliest U.S. and Soviet space stations, but it was visited by two short-duration crews and China has plans for a 60-ton space station early in the next decade.  (ISS weighs approximately 420 tons by comparison.)

For right now, however, the mood is one of heralding the 15-year milestone.  White House Science Adviser John Holdren and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden praised the ISS in a joint statement as a prime example of international cooperation, a laboratory for “groundbreaking research,” and “a testament to the ingenuity and boundless imagination of the human spirit.”

The top Democrats on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and its Space Subcommittee, Rep. Eddie Bernie Johnson (D-TX) and Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), called it an “incredible engineering achievement,” a “visible demonstration of peaceful cooperation in space,” and critical to doing the research that will “make progress toward the long-term goal of sending humans to Mars.”

CBS News Space Correspondent Bill Harwood published a four part article today highlighting key points in the history of the ISS and reflections by many observers of and participants in the program, including the first ISS Commander, NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd, and former ISS program manager Mike Suffredini.  Harwood quotes Suffredini as marvelling at how well the program has proceeded so far considering all the challenges: “You’re at 900,000-plus pounds of spacecraft with almost an acre’s worth of solar arrays out there, and all of it’s working.  So you’ve got to feel pretty good about that.” 

For this snapshot in time, setting aside the tortuous history and uncertain future, that is a succinct conclusion.

Last Updated: Nov 02, 2015 9:21 pm ET
Senate Passes Budget/Debt Limit Deal – UPDATE

Senate Passes Budget/Debt Limit Deal – UPDATE

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 30, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: November 2, 2015 8:56 pm ET

UPDATE, November 2, 2015:  President Obama signed the bill into law today.

ORIGINAL STORY, October 30, 2015:  At about 3:00 am ET this morning (October 30), the Senate passed the budget/debt limit deal negotiated by top congressional leaders and President Obama.  The deal was reached just days ago, but now has cleared Congress and will be sent to the President for his signature.

The Senate vote was 64-35.  Republican presidential candidates Rand Paul (KY), Ted Cruz (TX), and Marco Rubio (FL) voted against the bill, while Lindsey Graham (SC) voted in favor.  Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (VT), who is an Independent in the Senate, voted in favor.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (H.R. 1314) increases the budget caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act by $50 billion for FY2016 and $30 billion for FY2017.  It also adds $32 billion over those two years for Overseas Contingency Operations to fund the war in Afghanistan, for example.  Most of the increases are offset by changes to Social Secuity and Medicare.  It does not end sequestration, the across-the-board budget cuts that automatically go into effect if Congress exceeds the caps.  In fact, it extends sequestration through 2025.

The bill also raises the debt limit through March 16, 2017, past the 2016 congressional and presidential elections.  It does not set a new limit, but suspends the limit until that date.

Although very controversial in both the House and Senate, sufficient votes were cast to get it through.   House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) imminent departure and the need to raise the debt limit before November 3 motivated the quick action.   Boehner’s term as Speaker ended yesterday after Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was elected and sworn in as his replacement.  Boehner was one of the handful of top congressional leaders who negotiated the deal with the White House.  He was willing to rely on Democratic votes to get it passed even though many Republicans opposed it.  The vote in the House on Wednesday was 266-167, with all 167 no votes cast by Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) chose the wee hours of the night to get the legislation passed in that chamber.   A procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate for debate was taken beginning at 1:01 am ET this morning.  In that case, 60 votes were needed to invoke cloture and proceed with the bill. That vote was 63-35.  After about an hour and a half of debate, the vote on the bill itself was called, passing by a similar margin (64-35).  That action cleared the bill for the President at a dizzying pace in a town known more for political gridlock.  President Obama is expected to sign the bill quickly. 

The $80 billion total increase in the FY2016-2017 spending caps are at the top level.  There is no detail on how the extra funds will be spent so there is no way to know how much more, if any, NASA or NOAA will receive compared to the congressional action that has already taken place on their FY2016 appropriations.  It is now up to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to allocate the funding across the 12 regular appropriations bills.   All 12 likely will be combined into a single “omnibus” appropriations bill.  House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) expressed optimism that work can be completed by December 11 when the existing Continuing Resolution (CR) expires.

Last Updated: Nov 02, 2015 8:56 pm ET
NASA Unable To Determine Root Cause of Last Year's Orb-3 Failure

NASA Unable To Determine Root Cause of Last Year's Orb-3 Failure

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 29, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 29, 2015 8:12 pm ET

One year and a day after Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket exploded shortly after liftoff, NASA released an executive summary of its independent review of the event.  The rocket was launching a Cygnus cargo ship full of supplies for the International Station Station (ISS) under a NASA-Orbital contract.   NASA said it could not determine the root cause, but identified three possibilities. Orbital, which merged with ATK earlier this year and is now Orbital ATK, has not publicly released its own report. 

The launch of the company’s third operational commercial cargo mission for NASA, Orb-3, took place from Wallops Island, VA on October 28, 2014.  Fifteen seconds after launch, it exploded.   As a commercial launch, it was governed by the FAA’s regulations, which puts accident investigations in the hands of the company itself, not the customer — in this case NASA. NASA decided on its own to create an Independent Review Team (IRT). 

Orbital’s President and CEO, David Thompson, said just one day after the failure that one of the two NK-33/AJ-26 engines most likely was at fault.  The NK-33 engines were built in Russia more than four decades ago and refurbished in the United States by Aerojet (now Aerojet Rocketdyne) and redesignated AJ-26.  In subsequent months, Orbital and Aerojet reportedly agreed that the problem stemmed from a bad bearing, but disagreed on whether Aerojet failed to detect a faulty bearing or if the bearing was damaged by foreign object debris (FOD) ingested during the launch.

On September 24, 2015, Aerojet Rocketdyne submitted a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission to say it was paying Orbital ATK $50 million to terminate the contract for the AJ-26 engines and settle all claims the companies “may have had against one another.”   Orbital ATK will return title to the remaining 10 AJ-26 engines to be delivered under that contract.

In the executive summary of NASA’s IRT report, NASA added a third possibility — inadequate design robustness of the hydraulic balance assembly and turbine-end bearing.  Sufficient testing would have revealed this problem, the IRT said, but was not performed.

The IRT could not determine which of the three possible root causes — a mechanically faulty bearing, FOD, or poor design — was at fault.

Orbital is refitting Antares with different Russian rocket engines (RD-181s), so the precise cause may not be all that important for returning Antares to flight, but NASA’s interest is in ensuring that the company is taking the appropriate steps to ensure no similar failure occurs with the new engines.   The IRT report says that NASA provided “several” technical recommendations, but was not making them public because of “potential proprietary and export control restrictions.”

In an investors conference call earlier this week, Thompson said that repairs to the facilities at Wallops damaged by the launch failure are complete and a “hot fire” test of an Antares outfitted with the new engines is planned for January 2016.   He said the company is aiming for “early May” for the first launch of the new version of Antares. 

In the meantime, two of the company’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft will be launched on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets instead.  That will allow Orbital ATK to meet its contractual requirements to send 20 tons of cargo to the ISS by the end of 2016.  Cygnus has also been upgraded so it can carry more cargo per launch than the prior version.

The first Atlas V/Cygnus launch is scheduled from Cape Canaveral, FL on December 3, 2015.  The second will take place on March 10, 2016, Thompson said, followed by the return to flight of Antares from Wallops in May and a second Antares/Cygnus launch in late September/early October.   Thompson said those launches would “substantially” complete the company’s original Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.   It has been awarded three additional cargo flights under an extension of the CRS contract.  They will take place in 2017 and early 2018.  Orbital ATK also is one of the competitors in the second round of CRS contracts.  Winners of the CRS-2 competition are expected to be announced a week from today (November 5).

SpaceX is the other company currently under contract to NASA to send cargo to the ISS.   It, too, suffered a launch failure recently.  Its Falcon 9 rocket exploded 139 seconds after launch on June 28, 2015 destroying a Dragon capsule also filled with supplies for ISS.   An exact date for returning Falcon 9 to flight has not been announced, but company officials said last week that it will be in 6-8 weeks.  That launch will be of a set of Orbcomm-2 commercial communications satellites.  The next launch of cargo to the ISS on a Dragon spacecraft has not been announced.

Last Updated: Oct 29, 2015 8:12 pm ET
House and Senate Reach Agreement on Commercial Space Legislation

House and Senate Reach Agreement on Commercial Space Legislation

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 28, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 29, 2015 2:40 pm ET

House and Senate negotiators have reached agreement on a compromise version of commercial space legislation that passed the House and Senate earlier this year.

Details of the compromise have not been made public, but the revised bill could be voted on soon.  The Senate bill, the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (S. 1297) passed in August.  The House bill, Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act (H.R. 2262), passed in May.

The House and Senate versions have many differences, but Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), the new chair of the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, recently characterized them as minor during an appearance before the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).

The Senate version of the bill would extend the U.S. commitment to the International Space Station until at least 2024.  Current law — the 2010 NASA Authorization Act — says until at least 2020.  The Obama Administration announced the extension to 2024 in January 2014, but Congress has not formally agreed.  The House bill did not address this issue.

The House and Senate bills also vary on the length of time that the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation would be precluded from issuing additional regulations for commercial human spaceflight (the “learning period’) and that it can continue to indemnify commercial space launch companies from third party claims if there is a launch accident.  Under current law, the learning period expires on April 1, 2016 and the third-party indemnification authority ends on December 31, 2016.

The Senate version would extend the learning period and third-party liability to 2020.  The House version would extend both to 2025.

Word is that the compromise bill will be voted on first in the Senate.  The Senate has a very busy schedule ahead of it, for example dealing with legislation that passed the House today that would raise budget caps and the debt limit for two years, but comparatively non-controversial legislation like this can be brought up at any time.  Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) discussed the procedure that will be used to get the bill through the Senate, back to the House, and onto the President’s desk during a floor speech on Wednesday that indicated he anticipates a Senate vote very soon.

Note:  This article was updated with the reference and link to Sen. Nelson’s floor speech.

Last Updated: Oct 29, 2015 2:40 pm ET
House Passes Deal to Increase Spending Caps, Raise Debt Limit For Two Years

House Passes Deal to Increase Spending Caps, Raise Debt Limit For Two Years

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 28, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: October 28, 2015 6:27 pm ET

This afternoon (October 28) the House passed the deal negotiated by the White House and top congressional leaders to increase spending caps for FY2016 and FY2017 and raise the debt limit through March 2017.  Announcement that bipartisan agreement had been reached was made less than 48 hours ago.  The bill now goes to the Senate.

The House used an existing, unrelated bill, H.R. 1314, as the legislative vehicle.  H.R. 1314 began as a bill to allow appeals of IRS determinations of tax-exempt status.   The Senate amended that bill, replacing it with the text of the Trade Act of 2015.  Today the House amended the Senate amendment with the text of the budget/debt limit deal — the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015.

The vote was 266-167.  All 167 no votes were Republicans. The 266 yes votes were from 79 Republicans and all 187 Democrats who voted. (One Democrat, Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, and one Republican, Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, did not vote).

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who earlier today was chosen by the House Republican Conference as their candidate to become Speaker of the House, voted yes on the bill even though yesterday he said the process by which the agreement was reached “stinks.”  He would have preferred more involvement by members of Congress, rather than just the very top leadership of both chambers.  The full House is expected to vote tomorrow to elect Ryan as Speaker, although 45 Republicans did not support him today in the Republican Conference voting.  He received 200 votes from his fellow Republicans.  He needs 218 votes to become Speaker and it is expected that Democrats will vote for their leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) or another Democrat, not Ryan.  Thus he needs to convince at least 18 of the 45 to support him on the floor tomorrow in the vote to replace retiring Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

The budget/debt limit deal increases the caps on federal spending negotiated in the 2011 Budget Control Act for FY2016 and FY2017 by $80 billion ($50 billion in FY2016; $30 billion in FY2017).  It also adds $32 billion in spending for the off-budget Overseas Contingency Operations account.  It does not end the sequester (across-the-board cuts that automatically go into effect if Congress exceeds the caps) and, in fact, extends it through 2025.

It also raises the debt limit through March 2017, taking both issues — spending caps and the debt limit — off the table until after the 2016 congressional and presidential elections. 

Congress must raise the debt limit before November 3 to avoid a default, so the Senate is expected to act on this legislation quickly.  Although it is controversial in the Senate as well as the House, passage is anticipated.

The agreement is on top-level spending amounts, not specific funding for individual agencies.  The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will use the spending caps and allocate funding to agencies like NASA and NOAA.  The government is currently operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) that expires on December 11.   House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) expressed optimism today that all 12 regular appropriations bills can be finalized by then.

Confidence that the agreement means an end to threats of government shutdowns for the next two years is rampant even though the 16-day government shutdown in 2013 was primarily due to opposition to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), not to spending caps.  Many members of the conservative Republican Tea Party who were instrumental in that shutdown are equally determined to end government funding of Planned Parenthood this year, so it may be too early to breathe a sigh a relief.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) praised the House action in a statement released after the vote:  “AIA is relieved and thankful” because it adds “badly-needed” funding for defense and “substantial relief” for agencies like FAA, NASA, NOAA and the Coast Guard.

Last Updated: Oct 28, 2015 6:27 pm ET

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