Despite skepticism from a Russian Deputy Prime Minister, an official with Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, confirms that the recent Proton-M launch failure was caused by sensors that were installed upside down.

Alexander Lopatin, a deputy director of Roscosmos, is quoted today by Russia’s official news agency, Itar-Tass, as confirming earlier reports that angular rate sensors were installed “head over heels.”  Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin disputed the earlier reports saying that installation of the sensors was virtually foolproof.

Nonetheless, that is what happened according to Lopatin.  “The cause was an industrial process violation, the human factor,” he said.  The six angular rate sensors themselves were fine and passed all tests, but three of them were installed “head over heels” by workers at Khrunichev, the rocket’s manufacturer. 

The Proton-M rocket crashed spectacularly 17 seconds after launch on July 1 Eastern Daylight Time (July 2 local time at the launch site in Kazakhstan).  Three Russian GLONASS navigation satellites were destroyed.

Lopatin added that Proton rocket launches could resume in September.

The House Appropriations Committee approved the FY2014 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill, which includes NASA and NOAA, but what will happen to it next is unclear.

The committee is currently considering, and is expected to approve, the Financial Services bill.  As Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) pointed out, by the end of today six appropriations bills will be waiting in line for floor action.  He said he hopes House leadership will find time to bring them up for consideration as the days count down to the beginning of FY2014 on October 1.   Congress will be in recess for much of August.   The House is scheduled to be in session for only 19 more days prior to that deadline.

The defense appropriations bill may reach the floor this week, but the status of the others, including CJS, is up in the air. 

It has been many years since Congress completed action on the 12 regular appropriations bills on time; this year is not likely to be an exception.   Differences between the House and Senate are pronounced, with the House and Senate Budget Resolutions making very different assumptions about spending levels, so even if the House passed all its bills, reaching agreement between the two chambers will be a Herculean feat.  Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) predicted last month that no major budget-related decisions will be made until Congress is forced to act to raise the debt limit, which will not be under the end of the calendar year.

NASA is a good example of the differences.  The House committee approved $16.6 billion for the agency, $1.1 billion less than the $17.7 billion request.   The Senate Appropriations CJS subcommittee approved $18 billion, about $300 million more than the request when it marked up its version of the bill yesterday.  The full Senate committee is scheduled to mark up the bill tomorrow morning.

In a report today, NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) stressed that two factors will determine NASA’s ultimate success in maximizing utilization of the International Space Station (ISS): attracting non-government users and reliable crew and cargo transportation.

Noting that the United States paid $60 billion to build the ISS and currently spends $3 billion a year to operate it, the OIG report concludes that “it is essential that NASA make a concerted effort to maximize the research capabilities” of the space-based laboratory.  

The OIG gives NASA credit for utilization to date, saying that the agency is exceeding its goal of spending an average of 35 hours per week on scientific investigations, is performing over 100 investigations annually, and expects to increase the use of both internal and external research space in FY2013.  The focus of the report is how to increase utilization beyond what has been achieved already.

The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) was created to bring in non-NASA users.  NASA provides $15 million a year and CASIS is expected to bring in additional funds and users.   The OIG report says that NASA and CASIS have not yet established precise metrics that would reveal how successful CASIS has been so far.

A major focus of the report, however, is on the need for reliable crew and cargo transportation to and from the ISS to support research.  It traces the price increases for NASA purchases of “seats” on Russian Soyuz spacecraft from $22 million in 2006, to $25 million in 2010, to $28 million in the first half of 2011, to $43 million in the second half of 2011, to $55.6 million and $60 million for launches in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and $71 million for 2016-2017.   NASA is relying on its commercial crew program to develop U.S. crew space transportation capabilities by 2017, but the OIG report points out that Congress has not provided the agency with the level of funding needed to meet that date. 

Not only is it costly to purchase Russian seats, but relying on Soyuz means only six instead of seven crew members can live and work aboard the ISS, further limiting the amount of research that be conducted, the report continues. 

The OIG did not make any recommendations about commercial crew or cargo, however, only stressing the need for reliable transportation in order to maximize ISS utilization.   Its only recommended action was for NASA to develop metrics to determine CASIS’s success; NASA agreed to do that.