The weather was perfect, the rocket was perfect, the spacecraft was perfect, but the launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Orb-3 cargo mission to the International Space Station was scrubbed this evening because a boat was in restricted waters off the launch site at Wallops Island, VA.

Waters off any of the U.S. launch sites are restricted during launches to protect people and property from debris in case of an accident.  Apparently the operators of this one did not heed notices that the area was restricted.

There was only a 10-minute launch window and the boat was not clear of the range in time.

The next launch opportunity is tomorrow, October 28, at 6:22 pm Eastern Daylight Time.

Note: the new launch time has been updated.

The chairmen of the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) committee and its Space Subcommittee sent a letter to NASA yesterday (October 21) asking the agency to respond to previous inquiries from the committee regarding the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion, the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP) contracts and other matters to which NASA has not yet replied.

In yesterday’s letter, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Steve Palazzo (R-MS) repeated their requests for updated information on NASA’s plans for launching SLS and Orion.  Their original letter on August 27 stemmed from NASA’s announcement that day that it was committing to a November 2018 launch readiness date for SLS, almost a year longer than expected.  That letter requested a response by September 10, 2014, but the committee said it still has not received answers to its questions.

As for CCtCAP, yesterday’s letter notes that Space Subcommittee staff “reached out” to NASA the day the CCtCAP decision was announced, requesting a briefing and the source selection statement.  The letter explains that the committee understood it could not have such a briefing until after NASA briefed the offerors, but those briefings are now completed.  Although Sierra Nevada Corporation is protesting the awards to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the committee’s letter notes that the statute governing the bid protest process does not authorize “the withholding of any document or information from Congress or an executive agency.”  In addition, the committee states that NASA is proceeding with the contracts despite the protest and details of the source selection document were released to the press.  “We assume the Administration will submit a budget proposal to Congress in the next few months that will include funding for the CCtCAP program,” the letter continues, and Congress’s “ability to evaluate this budget request may be challenged by NASA’s uncooperative position.”

The letter also presses NASA to provide previously requested data on NASA’s treatment of potential termination liability obligations across the agency.

This letter asks for a NASA response by October 28, 2014.

NASA and Orbital Sciences Corporation have confirmed the October 27, 2014 launch date for Orbital’s Orb-3 cargo mission to the International Space Station  (ISS).  The launch date was dependent on whether a tracking station on Bermuda withstood Hurricane Gonzalo.   Inspectors have determined it will be ready for the launch next week.

This is Orbital’s third operational cargo mission to the ISS under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.  Orbital launches its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the coast of Virginia. The Bermuda tracking station is required for such launches.

Launch is scheduled for 6:45 pm Eastern Daylight Time on October 27.

Orbital announced that it has named this Cygnus spacecraft after the late Deke Slayton.  Slayton was one of first seven astronauts selected for America’s human spaceflight program in 1959 — the Mercury 7 — but an irregular heartbeat kept him grounded until he was cleared to fly the very last Apollo mission —  the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. After leaving NASA, he became one of the early commercial space launch entrepreneurs, heading a company named Space Services that developed the Conestoga 1 rocket, which in 1982 because the first privately funded rocket to reach space.

Ann Zulkosky, the top Senate Democratic staffer dealing with NASA issues on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, is leaving to join Lockheed Martin.

Zulkosky is a member of the Democratic professional staff of the committee, which is chaired by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).  Rockefeller is retiring at the end of this Congress and committee staff changes are common when the chairperson retires.  Zulkosky has been handling a variety of science issues, but is best known in space policy circles for her work on NASA issues with Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who chairs the committee’s Science and Space Subcommittee.

Zulkosky and her Republican staff counterpart, Jeff Bingham, working with Nelson and the committee’s top Republican at the time, Senator Kay Bailey Hutichison (R-TX), are largely credited with writing the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, a hard fought compromise between the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats and Republicans.  Bingham retired last year.

The 2010 law included funding recommendations only through FY2013, which has expired, but the policy provisions remain in force.  Key policy provisions allowed the Obama Administration to proceed with the commercial crew program to develop crew transportation systems to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), while insisting that NASA also develop a new spacecraft (Orion) and rocket (the Space Launch System) to take astronauts beyond low Earth orbit.

The House passed a new NASA authorization bill in June.  Senate action is expected next, but that may be more difficult to achieve with Zulkosky’s departure.

In an email this evening, Zulkosky confirmed that she is headed to Lockheed Martin as Director of NASA Programs, succeeding Mike Hawes.  Hawes was recently tapped to replace Cleon Lacefield as the company’s vice president and program manager for Orion.

At today’s hearing before the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Boeing and SpaceX were granted their requests to intervene in Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC’s) lawsuit to force NASA to reinstate a stop-work order on the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP) contracts. 

SNC filed suit on Wednesday asking the court to declare “illegal and void” NASA’s October 9 decision to override provisions of the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) so that work could proceed under the CCtCAP contracts despite SNC’s protest of the award.   Today was the first hearing in the case.

Boeing, SpaceX and SNC are all being funded under the current phase of NASA’s commercial crew program — the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCAP) phase.  On September 16, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX to continue into the next phase, CCtCAP.  Sierra Nevada filed a protest against that decision with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on September 26.   NASA issued a stop-work order to Boeing and SpaceX on the CCtCAP contracts because of the protest, but rescinded it on October 9 arguing that it was acting under its statutory authority to avoid serious adverse consequences. 

That prompted SNC to file this lawsuit against the U.S. Government on the basis that NASA had not demonstrated that it could not wait until GAO issued its ruling on SNC’s protest.  GAO has until January 5, 2015 to make its determination.

Today, Judge Marian Blank Horn granted motions from Boeing and SpaceX to “intervene” in the case and ordered that they file their submissions by Monday, October 20, at noon.  The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, October 21, at 2:30 pm ET.

The commercial crew program is essentially a public-private partnership where the government and the private sector are sharing the costs of developing new crew space transportation systems to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) with NASA serving as a market for the resulting services.  CCtCAP is the final phase of the development program, leading, NASA hopes, to operational systems by the end of 2017.  Until commercial crew systems are operational, NASA must rely on Russia to take crews to and from ISS because the space shuttle was terminated in 2011.