Category: Commercial

HASC Wants Answers on DOD Use of Foreign Commercial Satellites

HASC Wants Answers on DOD Use of Foreign Commercial Satellites

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 3, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2013 4:36 pm ET

House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) has released the text of the draft FY2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) his committee will markup on Wednesday.  Among the provisions in the 426-page bill, H.R.1960, is one that requires the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to answer questions about why DOD leases communications satellite services from certain countries subject to U.S. sanctions.

At a hearing before HASC’s Strategic Forces subcommittee in April, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Doug Loverro revealed that DOD is leasing services on a Chinese-owned communications satellite.   The revelation came as a surprise considering that many House Republicans are opposed to civilian space cooperation with China and the law prohibits NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) from spending any money in connection with China unless certain conditions are met.  No similar restrictions have been placed on DOD, however.  At least not yet.

Noting that 40 percent of DOD’s satellite communications are provided through commercial satellites, the draft bill requires the SecDef to explain why DOD uses satellite services from “certain foreign providers.”  The bill identifies those as countries subject to sanctions and laws such as section 1261(c)(2) of the FY2013 NDAA and the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).   “While the committee has received some information from the Department … the responses to straight-forward questions have changed over time.  The committee is disappointed by the Department’s lack of clarity … and … concerned that the Department has not established effective management controls over commercial satellite leases, and in particular, ones regarding certain foreign providers.”

Among the topics the SecDef is required to address is why “other commercial or U.S. Government providers, including the Operationally Responsive Space office, were not available or tasked to fill the requirement.”  The fate of the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office itself was not addressed in either the draft bill or a summary of its main provisions released by HASC today.   Congress rejected DOD’s proposal to terminate ORS last year, but the Air Force has again proposed terminating it this year.  In the material released today, it does not appear that HASC is changing any of the funding requests for DOD space activities.

On other commercial space matters, the summary of main provisions says that the bill requires DOD to “develop a strategy to lower the cost, through multi-year procurement, of commercial satellite services.”  Separately it “reforms DoD’s business process with commercial satellite companies ensuring that strategic competitors do not gain inadvertent access to vital systems or information.”  Details on what the committee has in mind on those two fronts hopefully will be in the report to accompany the bill, which was not released today. 

Overall, the bill would provide $552.1 billion for national defense (of which $526.6 billion is for the core DOD budget) plus $85.8 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (e.g. the war in Afghanistan).  The $85.8 billion is $5.1 billion more than the President’s request.  McKeon said the funding figures are consistent with the House-passed budget resolution, but Jeremy Herb, writing for the The Hill newspaper, reports that the $526.6 billion for the core DOD budget is $52 billion above the spending cap in the 2011 Budget Control Act that created sequestration.  “If the budget stays over the caps and sequester is not reversed, the Pentagon would face another across-the-board cut,” Herb says.

Full committee markup begins at 10:00 am ET on Wednesday and will be webcast on the committee’s website.

Last Updated: Jun 03, 2013 4:36 pm ET
Sea Launch Completes Investigation of Intelsat 27 Launch Failure

Sea Launch Completes Investigation of Intelsat 27 Launch Failure

By Marcia Smith | Posted: June 3, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2013 10:52 pm ET

Sea Launch AG announced today completion of its investigation into the cause of the January 31, 2013 (Pacific Time, February 1 Eastern Time) failure of the launch of the Intelsat-27 satellite.  Corrective actions are underway and do not require hardware changes, the company said.

The launch failure was another blow not only to Sea Launch itself, but to the reputation of the Russian and Ukrainian companies that produce the Zenit rocket’s three stages.   The first two stages of Sea Launch’s version of Zenit, the Zenit-3SL, are Ukrainian, with a Russian third stage on top.  The rocket is launched from a Norwegian-built mobile ocean-going platform based in Long Beach, CA and towed to a position close to the equator for launch.  Boeing originally was a 40 percent partner in Sea Launch, but the company declared bankruptcy in 2009 after a spectacular launch failure in 2007. The company reorganized and now is 95 percent owned by Russia’s Energia RSC.  Boeing retains a very small share of the company.

The Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) for the January 31 failure issued its final report on May 31, concurring with earlier findings that the failure was isolated to the rocket’s first stage hydraulic power supply unit and corrective actions involve additional inspections and tests, Sea Launch said today.   Company executives will now meet with customer and insurance representatives to convince them the rocket is ready to return to flight.

Last Updated: Jun 03, 2013 10:52 pm ET
Air Force Seeking Industry Comments on Space Launch Assessment

Air Force Seeking Industry Comments on Space Launch Assessment

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 29, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 29, 2013 8:10 am ET

The Air Force wants input from industry about its ongoing National Security Space Launch Assessment.   But hurry!  Comments are due in three weeks.

Specifically, the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space is seeking “views and perspectives to inform an ongoing strategic National Security Space Launch Assessment” by getting answers to four questions:

  • Describe your company’s near-term and long-term plans to offer launch services to the U.S. Government.
  • What are the critical issues that concern current and prospective launch service providers who intend to provide the capability to launch national security payloads?
  • What DoD policy recommendations would your company have to improve national launch capabilities or aid industry in lowering the cost of space access?
  • What aspects of future DoD launch service or systems acquisitions would contribute to industrial base stabilization in your respective sectors?

The announcement was published in today’s Federal Register.   Any member of the public may comment and information is for U.S. Government use only and will not be shared with external parties.

Responses, preferably in electronic form, are due by June 21, 2013 to: 

Lt, Col. Robert Long
Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space
1670 Air Force Pentagon
Washington, DC 20330-1670
703-693-4978
ea4ss.launch@pentagon.af.mil

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: May 29, 2013 8:10 am ET
Planetary Resources Announces Crowdsourcing Campaign – update

Planetary Resources Announces Crowdsourcing Campaign – update

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 29, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 20, 2013 8:58 am ET

UPDATE:  June 20, 2013:  Planetary Resources has reached its $1 million goal.

ORIGINAL STORY, May 29, 2013:  The “unprecedented project that will change the way humanity explores the cosmos” promised by Planetary Resources Inc. turned out to be a Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign to raise $1 million for portions of its ARKYD space telescope project.  The “unprecedented” part apparently is that “the crowd” will have a voice in what targets the very small telescope observes.

A bungled webcast might have been a bad portent for the prospective asteroid mining company, but within two hours of the press conference that was available only to reporters on site at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Planetary Resources raised 10 percent of its $1 million goal.  A second part of the event, which also is supposed to be livestreamed, is scheduled for this afternoon.

The company proclaimed earlier this week that it would be “opening the space frontier to all.”   Details were to be presented today at a press conference at 10:00 am Pacific (1:00 pm Eastern) followed by a “community” event (3:30 pm Pacific, 6:30 pm Eastern) featuring Brent Spiner, the actor who portrayed Data on Star Trek: Next Generation.  Both events were to be livestreamed. The livestreaming did not work for the first event.  Hopefully the technical issues will be fixed for the second.  

Meanwhile, the company issued a press release explaining what they had trumpeted as an “unprecedented project that will change the way humanity explores the cosmos.”  It is a Kickstarter campaign to raise $1 million.  The money will not be used to pay for the ARKYD space telescope itself, but to —

  • launch the telescope
  • fund the creation of the user interface
  • cover the fulfillment costs for all the products and services in the pledge levels (which range from $10 to $10,000), and
  • fund the immersive educational curriculum for students everywhere

The company’s mission is to mine asteroids and it plans to build space telescopes to search for suitable targets.  That is not what this telescope is for, however,  The Kickstarter page states that “this satellite is very different from those that we intend to launch for the purpose of locating asteroids.”   It is a 15 kilogram (33 pound) satellite that will be 425 millimeters (16.7 inches) in length when deployed in space, with a wingspan of 600 mm (23.6 inches) and peak power of 50 watts.

What Planetary Resources asserts is unprecedented is that it will be the first “publicly accessible space telescope” that will be “controlled by YOU, the crowd.”   What that actually means is difficult to discern from the company’s prose on Kickstarter.   One section says “you can use your telescope time” to do certain things while another asks “don’t know what object in space you’d want to take a picture of?”, implying that individual contributors will be directing the spacecraft to look at certain objects.   Other sections, however, suggest the opposite.  For example, that phrase about how ARKYD will be “controlled by YOU, the crowd” goes on to say “through your pledges and community involvement.”  Later the text explains that “you’ll get the opportunity to help decide which science centers and museums are the beneficiaries of ARKYD telescope time,” and contributors will “get voting access to make your voice heard in the future direction of the satellite!”

Whatever the company is actually promising, its public relations strategy appears to be working.  Within two hours of the press conference, even without the webcast, the company raised over $100,000,10 percent of its goal.  Pledges can be made through June 30.

Planetary Resources Inc. has an august list of backers, including Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and Ross Perot Jr.   Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson founded the company in 2009.

Last Updated: Jun 20, 2013 8:58 am ET
Space Policy Events for the Weeks of May 27-June 7, 2013 – update

Space Policy Events for the Weeks of May 27-June 7, 2013 – update

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 26, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 27, 2013 1:11 pm ET

UPDATE, May 27:  Planetary Resources announced a second event on Wednesday, and NASA will hold a media telecon on Thursday on Curiosity’s radiation findings.

The following events may be of interest in the next two weeks.  Congress is in recess for the Memorial Day holiday this coming week (May 27-31), but will be back in action the week of June 3.

Tuesday, May 28

Wednesday, May 29

Wednesday-Friday, May 29-31

Thursday, May 30

Monday-Wednesday, June 3-5

Tuesday, June 4

Wednesday, June 5

 

 

Last Updated: May 27, 2013 1:11 pm ET
Obama Administration Releases Draft Rules to Ease Satellite Export Controls – update

Obama Administration Releases Draft Rules to Ease Satellite Export Controls – update

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 23, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 24, 2013 8:26 am ET

UPDATE, May 24:  Links to the proposed rules as published in the Federal Register have been added.

ORIGINAL STORY, May 23: The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) announced the news this afternoon that the Obama Administration has released the draft rules for easing export controls on satellites.   It is another step in a process likely to last for many more months as the Administration implements export control changes agreed to in the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The satellite industry has been trying for more than a decade to move commercial satellites off the State Department’s strict Munitions List and its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and over to the dual-use Commerce Control List at the Department of Commerce.

SIA provided links to the draft regulations issued by the Department of State and the Department of Commerce.  Those websites state that the draft rules will be published in tomorrow’s Federal Register (May 24), the official method by which the government publicizes regulatory proceedings. 

The draft rules were indeed published in the Federal Register on May 24.  The State Department’s draft rule is at this site, and the Commerce Department’s at this site.

Comments are due 45 days after publication in the Federal Register (July 8, 2013).

 

Last Updated: May 24, 2013 8:26 am ET
Patti Grace Smith: Extend Indemnification for 10 Years, At least

Patti Grace Smith: Extend Indemnification for 10 Years, At least

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 20, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 20, 2013 7:41 pm ET

Patti Grace Smith called on Congress last week to extend the FAA’s authority to provide third party indemnification for commercial launch services companies for 10 years or, better yet, permanently.

After lengthy debate last year, Congress extended the indemnification authority for only one year – through December 31, 2013 — so the topic is back on the table for consideration this year.

Smith was a witness at a May 16 Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on advancing partnerships in the business of space.   Much of the hearing focused on the nexus between government and commercial space activities in future human space exploration, but she also raised narrower issues important to the commercial space launch industry. 

A former head of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), she is now a consultant to the commercial space industry and chairs the Commercial Space Committee of the NASA Advisory Council.  She also advised the subcommittee that AST should remain a part of the FAA rather than reporting directly to the Secretary of Transportation as it did when it was created in 1984.  She believes that by keeping the office within the FAA, aviation officials are forced to deal with questions about how to integrate commercial space launches into the National Airspace System (NAS) rather than ignoring them.

Eventually AST should “take its rightful, its logical place as another transportation mode” separate from the FAA, but in her view it is better situated within the FAA for now.

Prepared statements of the witnesses and a webcast of the hearing are available on the committee’s website.

Last Updated: May 20, 2013 7:41 pm ET
Hale: Logistics Key To Deep Space Human Exploration, and Commercial Space Is The Answer

Hale: Logistics Key To Deep Space Human Exploration, and Commercial Space Is The Answer

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 20, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 20, 2013 7:41 pm ET

Former NASA space shuttle program manager Wayne Hale told the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space Thursday that it is difficult for his generation to change its “mental model” of the NASA-funded Apollo program as the way for humans to explore space.   The reality today, he stressed, is that the government and the commercial sector must team together and leverage each other’s capabilities because taxpayers are only willing to spend half-a-percent of the federal budget on NASA, not the 3-4 percent in the Apollo era.

Hale, currently the Director of Human Spaceflight for Special Aerospace Services, was responding to a question from Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) at a May 16 hearing on advancing partnerships in the business of space.  As the hearing came to a close, Nelson wanted to know why it is so hard to get people to understand that commercial space activities will “collaborate, supplement, enhance” NASA’s program to send humans beyond low Earth orbit (LEO).

Patti Grace Smith, former FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (AST) and now a consultant, agreed that people still associate space activities with NASA and not the private sector even though commercial space launches date back to the 1980s.   “Where we sit is what we know,” she said, and because NASA holds the reputation as “the premier space agency,” it has been challenging to get people to accept that commercial space can succeed.   That perception is changing, she added, with NASA’s new partnerships with the commercial sector and the successful flight of SpaceShipOne in 2004.

Whether the slowly changing paradigm will help win support for NASA’s FY2014 request of $831 million for the commercial crew program, however, is an open question as Nelson made clear. He said that he and Ranking Member Ted Cruz (R-TX) will be working on a new NASA authorization act this year and “in the past, it sure has been difficult to get people to recognize” the value and necessity of the commercial and government space sectors partnering together in human space exploration.

Many in Congress are determined to restore a U.S. capability for launching people into space by 2017, but have not provided NASA with the requested funds for its approach to achieving that goal – the commercial crew program.  The $831 million request is more than $300 million above what Congress provided for FY2013.  Finding that extra money will not be easy, especially since policy issues such as how many companies to support have not been settled and some influential Members remain highly skeptical of commercial crew overall.  The alternative would be using the Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, but that system is oversized (and thus expensive) for ferrying crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

More generally, Hale connected the dots between today’s commercial crew and cargo efforts to support the ISS and the longer term future of human space exploration.   ISS itself is crucial for testing technologies needed for long duration spaceflight and ISS needs commercial cargo and commercial crew, he said.  For missions to the Moon and Mars, the key will be logistics, he continued, quoting Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf as saying “armchair generals study tactics, real generals study logistics.”  Lowering the cost of getting mass into LEO will be crucial to supplying logistics for long duration flights beyond LEO.  “Getting mass to [LEO] is halfway to anywhere in the universe.  And if we can supply equipment, fuel, even crews cheaply to [LEO] that has got to be a vital link in ensuring that whatever deep space” missions are mounted will be successful.  “Low cost transportation enables all of that.  That’s what we’re all about in the commercial space enterprises.”

Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Michael Lopez-Alegria was asked about the size of the market for suborbital and orbital commercial human space flight, or space tourism as it often is called.  He cited a 2012 report by The Tauri Group that the suborbital market could be $600 million over the next decade, but said there is no equivalent study of the orbital market.   He is convinced a sizeable market will develop, but could not say when:  “It’s hard to predict markets that don’t exist yet, but … all I can say, like the famous movie quote … ‘build it and they will come.’”

Lopez-Alegria, a former astronaut who made four trips to space, including commanding the ISS, argued strongly in favor of the commercial crew program as well as extending ISS operations to 2028.  Currently the United States and its ISS partners (Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada) have agreed to operate it only until 2020, though NASA believes it technically could remain operational through 2028, 30 years after the first module was launched.

Purdue University’s Steven Collicott testified about the research opportunities enabled by commercial suborbital vehicles, noting that Purdue has a down payment on a spot on a Virgin Galactic flight.   The university does not plan to fly a person, but “200 pounds of automated payload to advance high-tech Indiana industry.”   He also is building payloads to fly on suborbital systems offered by Armadillo, Blue Origin, Masten, and XCOR, as well as a high altitude balloon company, Near Space.  He believes these types of flight opportunities will encourage students to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Smith also argued for extending the FAA’s authority to indemnify commercial space launch services companies against certain amounts of losses if there is an accident for at least 10 years, and for keeping AST within the FAA for the time being.

Prepared statements of the witnesses and a webcast of the hearing are on the committee’s website.

Last Updated: May 20, 2013 7:41 pm ET
Space Policy Events for the Week of May 20-24, 2013

Space Policy Events for the Week of May 20-24, 2013

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 19, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 19, 2013 12:42 pm ET

The following space policy events may be of interest in the week ahead.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Among the highlights of the coming week are congressional hearings on NASA and NOAA and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) subcommittee markups of the FY2014 National Defense Authorization Act.

A House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) subcommittee will hold a hearing on Tuesday on Next Steps in Human Exploration of Space that seems focused on the new asteroid retrieval mission proposed in NASA’s FY2014 budget request. 

Another House SS&T subcommittee will hold a hearing on Thursday on how to restore U.S. leadership in weather forecasting, a NOAA responsibility, though it is hard to tell how much of that will focus on weather satellites rather than computer models.   Later that morning the Senate Commerce committee will hold its nomination hearing for Penny Pritzker to be the new Secretary of Commerce.   The Department of Commerce is NOAA’s parent agency and it also is one of the two cabinet level departments responsible for export controls (State Department is the other), so is a critical participant in implementing the export control reforms required under last year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  Rumors were rampant that the draft regulations for reforming satellite export controls would be published in the Federal Register last week, but that did not happen; perhaps they will be issued this week.  That is just one step in the lengthy regulatory process that many hope will result in commercial satellites no longer being subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) under the State Department’s Munitions List.

All of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) subcommittees will markup their respective portions of the FY2014 NDAA this week.  The Strategic Forces subcommittee, which is responsible for most military space programs, will hold its markup on Wednesday.   Full committee markup is scheduled for June 5.  (The Senate Armed Services Committee markups are scheduled for June 11-12.)

Monday, May 20

Monday-Wednesday, May 20-22

Monday-Friday, May 20-24

Tuesday, May 21

Wednesday, May 22

Thursday, May 23

Thursday-Monday, May 23-27

 

 

Last Updated: May 19, 2013 12:42 pm ET
Space Policy Events for the Week of May 13-17, 2013

Space Policy Events for the Week of May 13-17, 2013

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 12, 2013 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 12, 2013 12:38 pm ET

The following events may be of interest in the week ahead.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Perhaps the most intriguing event this week is Thursday’s House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee’s Oversight Subcommittee hearing on “Espionage Threats at Federal Laboratories:  Balancing Scientific Cooperation While Protecting Critical Information.”   No NASA witnesses are on the list, but it would be surprising if the agency is not a subject of discussion.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) made headlines earlier this year with allegations that a Chinese national, Bo Jiang, was stealing secrets from NASA’s Langely Research Center.  Jiang was arrested, but later exonerated of a felony charge of lying to federal investigators.  Wolf has raised concerns for some time about alleged improprieties regarding ITAR-controlled information at NASA’s Ames Research Center.  Wolf chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA and works closely with House SS&T Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) on this issue.  They jointly sent a letter to the FBI and to the Department of Justice Inspector General about their concerns about NASA-Ames this spring (links to the letters are on Rep. Wolf’s website).    Witnesses on Thursday are Chuck Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering (and President Emeritus of MIT); Larry Wortzel, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission  (and former Asian Studies Center director at the Heritage Foundation); Michelle Van Cleave, Senior Research Fellow at George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute (she was the National Counterintelligence Executive in the George W. Bush Administration and once was a staffer on the House SS&T Committee); and David Major of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (a retired FBI agent, his company trains people in counterintelligence and related topics).  Should be interesting!

Monday, May 13

Tuesday, May 14

Tuesday-Wednesday, May 14-15

Thursday, May 16

 

Last Updated: May 12, 2013 12:38 pm ET

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