Category: International

China Readies First Space Station Cargo Mission – UPDATE

China Readies First Space Station Cargo Mission – UPDATE

China is getting ready to launch its first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, to its Tiangong-2 space station later this week.  China’s Xinhua news services says the launch will take place between April 20 and 24.  This is a test of robotic in-orbit refueling.  No one is aboard the space station or the cargo spacecraft. [UPDATE: China has announced the launch will take place on April 20 at 7:41 pm local time (7:41 am Eastern Daylight Time.]

Tiangong-2 was launched last year and occupied by a two-man crew for 30 days.  It has been empty since then.  China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, was launched in 2011 and occupied by two three-person crews (two men and one woman each) in 2012 and 2013 for 13 days and 15 days respectively.  The Tiangong space stations are quite small – 8.6 metric tons (MT).  China is planning to build a three-module 60-MT space station by 2022.  Tianzhou spacecraft would be used to deliver fuel and cargo to it.

Tianzhou-1, which is larger (13 MT) than Tiangong, will be launched from China’s new Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island using the new Long March 7 mid-sized rocket.  The first Long March 7 was launched last year.


Tianzhou-1 space station cargo spacecraft atop its Long March 7 rocket being transferred from the assembly building to the launch pad at Wenchang Satellite Launch Center, Hainan Island, China, April 17, 2017.  Photo credit:  Xinhua

Tianzhou-1 will dock with Tiangong-2 three times to test in-orbit liquid propellant refueling.  The Soviet Union demonstrated the first robotic refueling of a space station in 1978 when Progress 1 refueled Salyut 6.  Russia still uses Progress spacecraft today to refuel the International Space Station’s (ISS’s) station-keeping engines as well as to take supplies to ISS.

Tianzhou-1 can carry 6.5 MT of cargo according to China Global Television News (CGTN).  The current version of Russia’s Progress can deliver about 2.5 MT of cargo.  Three other spacecraft resupply ISS — SpaceX’s Dragon, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus (one of which will be launched tomorrow), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) HTV or Kounotori.    HTV is the largest of those, capable of delivering approximately 6 MT of cargo.

What's Happening in Space Policy April 17-22, 2017

What's Happening in Space Policy April 17-22, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of April 17-22, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess this week.

During the Week

Topic A this week is the International Space Station (ISS) and not just logistics, but the microgravity science research being conducted there.

Logistically, the next cargo launch is on Tuesday — Orbital ATK’s OA-7 mission — and two new crew members will launch and dock on Thursday on Soyuz MS-04.  Pre-launch briefings are scheduled for tomorrow (Monday). The OA-7 launch is on Tuesday at 11:11 am ET from Cape Canaveral on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.  The launch has a 30 minute window and the weather is 90 percent favorable as of today. 

This will be the first-ever launch to be broadcast with a 360-degree view according to NASA.  Coverage on NASA’s regular TV outlets begins at 10:00 am ET.  The 360-degree view begins on NASA’s YouTube channel 10 minutes before launch.  NASA, Orbital ATK and ULA are all working together on the 360-degree view, so the two companies’ websites may also carry it.  A post-launch press conference is scheduled for 2:00 pm ET.  Two days later, Soyuz MS-04 will take NASA’s Jack Fischer and Roscosmos’s Fyodor Yurchikhin to ISS.  As we explained last week, Russia is reducing its ISS crew complement from three to two, so there’s an empty seat on this launch, which will be filled by Peggy Whitson on the return.

A key point of having ISS in the first place is to perform scientific research in microgravity.  In Washington, DC, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine will hold a day-long public symposium on Wednesday where scientists will discuss that research.  The next day (Thursday), a panel discussion will take place on Capitol Hill to highlight some of it.  

The Academies symposium is in conjunction with a meeting of a committee that is performing a mid-term review of the 2011 Decadal Survey on life and physical sciences research in space to evaluate how NASA is implementing those recommendations.   Decadal Surveys cover 10 years (a decade, hence “decadal”).  Congress requires NASA to contract with the Academies for Decadal Surveys in each of the science disciplines as well as for mid-term reviews of each study half way though the relevant decade.  The mid-term review committee cannot change the priorities in the original report, but assesses how things are going.  The mid-term review committee is meeting Tuesday-Thursday, but most of Tuesday and all of Thursday are in closed session.  Wednesday’s public colloquium will be webcast.  The Academies requests that everyone pre-register whether planning to attend in person or watch the webcast.

On Thursday morning, the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR), the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) and Rep. Brian Babin (chair of the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee) will hold a panel discussion on Capitol Hill with four scientists who will discuss their own ISS research on water engineering, the movement of fluids, tissue healing, and plant research.  The event is free, but pre-registration is required.

On another topic, Saturday, April 22, is Earth Day and “March for Science” rallies will take place around the globe.  One will be on the National Mall in Washington, DC (near the Washington Monument).  Organizers are requesting that people who plan to attend let them know through the RSVP link on their website, where you can also find the locations of other rallies that might be closer to you if you can’t get to DC.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below. Check for others we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.

Monday, April 17

Tuesday, April 18

  • Orbital ATK 7 (OA-7) Launch, Cape Canaveral, FL, 11:11 am ET (30 minute launch window).  Regular NASA TV coverage begins 10:00 am ET; first-ever 360-degree launch view coverage begins 10 minutes before launch on NASA’s YouTube channel.   Post-launch press conference 2:00 pm ET.

Tuesday-Thursday, April 18-20

Tuesday-Friday, April 18-21

Wednesday, April 19

Thursday, April 20

Thursday-Friday, April 20-21

Friday, April 21

Saturday, April 22

G-7 Foreign Ministers Call for Safe, Secure, Sustainable Space Environment

G-7 Foreign Ministers Call for Safe, Secure, Sustainable Space Environment

The foreign ministers of the G-7 countries issued a joint communique yesterday in which they recognized the importance of space activities and called for a safe, secure, sustainable and stable space environment, increased transparency, and strengthened norms of responsible behavior.  At the same time, the G-7 Nonproliferation Directors Group issued a statement on non-proliferation and disarmament that includes four paragraphs about space that goes further, urging, for example, that countries refrain from destruction of space objects — intentionally or unintentionally.

The G-7 is an informal group of industrialized countries — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States — that meets annually  Their foreign ministers met April 10-11 in Lucca, Italy in preparation for the upcoming heads-of-government summit next month.  Their 30-page joint communique following the meeting includes one paragraph about space:

Outer space activities have immense potential. We recognize the rapid development of the modern space environment and the importance of outer space activities both in the day to day lives of our citizens and for the social, economic, scientific and technological development of all states. We are committed to enhancing the long-term safety, security, sustainability, and stability of the space environment, to increasing transparency in space activities, and to strengthening norms of responsible behaviour for all outer space activities.

The G-7 Nonproliferation Directors Group went further. Their 13-page statement similarly reiterates a commitment to a safe, secure and sustainable space environment, but also calls on countries to “refrain from irresponsible intentional destruction of space objects, including by anti-satellite tests, and from any other action which brings about, directly or indirectly, damage or destruction of space objects.”  They also “strongly encourage” countries to “cooperate in good faith to avoid harmful interference with outer space activities, in a manner consistent with international law” and to prevent the creation and diffusion of space debris.   The full text of the space section is as follows:

OUTER SPACE

60. Outer space activities play a significant and increasing role in the social, economic, scientific and technological development of States, as well as in maintaining international peace and security. In this context, we reiterate our commitment to preserve a safe, secure, and sustainable outer space environment and the need to evolve and implement principles of responsible behavior for all outer space activities in a prompt and pragmatic manner, ensuring the peaceful exploration and use of outer space on the basis of equality and in accordance with international law.

61. We call on all States to refrain from irresponsible intentional destruction of space objects, including by anti-satellite tests, and from any other action which brings about, directly or indirectly, damage or destruction of space objects. We strongly encourage all States to take appropriate measures to cooperate in good faith to avoid harmful interference with outer space activities, in a manner consistent with international law, as well as to cooperate to prevent the creation and diffusion of long-lived orbital debris.

62. We reaffirm our commitment, and call on all States, to review and implement, to the extent practicable, the proposed transparency and confidence-building measures contained in the recommendations of the UN Group of Governmental Experts Report (A/68/189, 29 July 2013) such as information exchange on space policies and strategies, information exchange and notifications related to outer space activities in a timely manner and an effective consultation mechanism.

63. We strongly support efforts to rapidly complete clear, practicable and proven Guidelines for Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (UN-COPUOS) by 2018. We encourage all Member States of the Committee to play a constructive role to this end, building on the significant results recently achieved, both during the 59th session of the UN-COPUOS and the 54th session of the Committee’s Scientific and Technical Subcommittees.

These communiques will feed into the 43rd G-7 summit to be held May 26-27 in Taormina, Italy (on the island of Sicily).  Italy is currently president of the G-7. Russia became a member of the group in 1998 and it was then known as the G-8.  Russia was suspended in 2014 after its annexation of Crimea, however, so it is now once again the G-7.

On Cosmonautics Day, Russia Laments State of Space Program

On Cosmonautics Day, Russia Laments State of Space Program

On this day in 1961, the Soviet Union launched the first human being into space — Yuri Gagarin.  It was the height of the Cold War and Soviet space
achievements were outshining the United States.  Fast forward 56 years and the two former space rivals are now engaged in a successful partnership
operating the International Space Station (ISS), but some Russians are lamenting the state of their space program especially when compared with U.S.
advances.

Russia’s official news agency Tass published a lengthy article today — Cosmonautics Day in Russia in commemoration of Gagarin’s flight.   “The
recent years have been difficult” for Russia’s space program “due to international sanctions against Russia and successes by the country’s space rivals,
notably from the United States,” Tass reports.  While space program funding has been cut in Russia, “the United States successfully tested reusable
rocket boosters and continued tests of delivery vehicles intended to replace Russian-made Soyuz” rockets.

SpaceX’s launch of a reused rocket and plans to replace Russia’s RD-180 engines for the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) Atlas V rocket “demonstrate that
we are entering difficult times and that the reserves of the Soviet space program are now about to be depleted,” according to Alexander Zheleznyakov
of the Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics.

Indeed, the Russian space program has been plagued with failures of several of its once-reliable rockets, including Soyuz and Proton.  Russia is developing
the new Angara family of rockets to replace those and other Soviet-era designs, but more than two years have passed since the first tests.  Corruption is one of the problems facing the space program overall. 
Funding cutbacks are another.  Sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine have had a significant
economic impact and the deteriorating U.S.-Russia relationship led to the decision to replace the RD-180 engines on Atlas V with American-made equivalents.

To date, at least, the ISS partnership has been spared any fallout from the changed relationship.  While April 12 is known as Cosmonautics Day and
primarily celebrates Gagarin’s flight, it is also the 36th anniversary of the first U.S. space shuttle flight.  The decision to terminate the
shuttle program in 2011, after 30 years of service, made the United States dependent on Russia for access to the ISS.  Crews are taken to and
from ISS in Soyuz spacecraft on Soyuz rockets.  Three ISS crew members just returned to Earth on April 10 and a new crew will launch on April
20.  As a sign of the times, Russia is reducing its ISS crew complement from three to two to lessen resupply requirements so fewer Progress cargo
spacecraft are needed.

Nonetheless, Russia’s space state corporation Roscosmos is making big plans for the near- and long-term future, including sending cosmonauts to the Moon
using Angara-5 rockets and a new “Federatsiya” (Federation) spacecraft.

Whatever the future may hold, today is a day of celebration for human spaceflight enthusiasts everywhere with Yuri’s night events scheduled around the world.

 

 

What's Happening in Space Policy April 10-22, 2017

What's Happening in Space Policy April 10-22, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the next TWO weeks, April 10-22, 2017, and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate
are in recess for two weeks.

During the Weeks

At last!  We’re getting a bit of a break.  With Congress in recess until April 24 and most of the big U.S. space conferences over for the first
half of the year, the list of events is shorter than it’s been recently.  We’ve decided to combine the next two weeks, taking us through April
22 — Earth Day and the March for Science.

During this period, three crew members will return from the International Space Station (ISS) and two — yes, just two — will launch to the ISS. 
Russia is cutting back on how many of its cosmonauts are aboard ISS to reduce requirements to resupply them using Progress cargo spacecraft. 
It’s a cost cutting move that presents opportunities for NASA astronauts.  First among them is Peggy Whitson who will get to remain aboard ISS
for an extra three months. 

The do-si-do of ISS crews is difficult to follow sometimes, but under normal circumstances in the post-shuttle era there are six crew members aboard —
three from Russia and three from the other partners (at least one from NASA and others from ESA, JAXA, and CSA).  The limit is based on how many
can get off the ISS in an emergency, which is dictated by how many Soyuz spacecraft are attached since they not only routinely take people back and
forth, but serve as lifeboats while there.  Each Soyuz can accommodate three people, so with the usual two Soyuzes docked, six people are OK.  
With Russia cutting its crew from three to two, that means there’s an extra Soyuz seat for an emergency or a routine return to Earth.

An American (Shane Kimbrough) and two Russians (Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko) will return on April 10 in their Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, leaving
three people on board (NASA’s Whitson, ESA’s Thomas Pesquet and Russia’s Oleg Novitskiy) along with their Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft.  On April 20,
an American (Jack Fischer) and a Russian (Fyodor Yurchikhin) will launch on Soyuz MS-04, with an empty seat.  Whitson was supposed to return on
Soyuz MS-03 with Pesquet and Novitsky, but now will remain and come back with Fischer and Yurchikhin.  Whitson is setting records for most cumulative
time in space for an American (on April 24 she will break Jeff Williams’ 534-day record) and the most spacewalks for an American woman (8).  This
morning a change of command ceremony took place as the Soyuz MS-02 crew prepares to depart.  She will be the new commander.  This is her
second assignment as ISS commander.  She was the first woman commander of ISS on her last trip there in 2008.  (This is her third long duration
ISS mission. Her first was in 2002.)

A U.S. cargo mission to the ISS also is coming up during this period.  Orbital ATK-7 (OA-7) is launching on United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) Atlas
V rocket this time instead of Orbital ATK’s Antares.  The launch therefore is from Cape Canaveral and has been delayed several times in recent
weeks because of one technical problem or another.  It is currently scheduled for April 18, though we haven’t seen a time posted by ULA or NASA
yet.

Staying with the human spaceflight theme, it also is worth noting that April 12 is the 56th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man to orbit
the Earth, and the 36th anniversary of the first U.S. space shuttle launch.  We haven’t heard of any commemorative events, however,

Other events of particular note include: meetings of the Science Committee of the NASA Advisory Council (April 12-13), NOAA’s Advisory Committee on Commercial
Remote Sensing (ACCRES, April 12), and the National Academies committee performing a mid-term review of the Decadal Survey of physical and biological
sciences in space (April 18-20); a European Conference on Space Debris (April 18-21); and a WSBR panel discussion on defense space priorities for the
Trump Administration (April 20).

And on Saturday, April 22, a March for Science rally will take place. Actually, there several hundred taking place around the world according to the Earth
Day Network website, which says it is the lead organizer.  Washington, D.C. will be the site of a “rally and teach-in” on the National Mall (north
side of the Washington Monument, South of Constitution Ave NW, between 15th and 17th Street, NW) beginning at 9:00 am ET.  No tickets are needed,
but organizers hope people will register to attend any of the rallies.  Earth
Day itself has been held every year since 1970 to focus attention on the fragility of Earth’s environment.  (The iconic Earthrise photo taken by the Apollo 8 crew — the first crew to orbit the Moon – in 1968 is often cited as a catalyst for the environmental
movement and Earth Day.  The Blue Marble photograph taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972 has been widely adopted as an emblem for Earth Day.)

Those and other activities we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and
add to our Events of Interest list.

Monday, April 10

Wednesday, April 12

Wednesday-Thursday, April 12-13

Friday, April 14

  • Space Capabilities (Mitchell Institute),
    Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC, 8:00 am ET (pre-registration required)

Tuesday, April 18

Tuesday-Thursday, April 18-20

Tuesday-Friday, April 18-21

Thursday, April 20

Thursday-Friday, April 20-21

Friday, April 21

Saturday, April 22

Cassini About To Begin Grand Finale Dives into Saturn's Atmosphere

Cassini About To Begin Grand Finale Dives into Saturn's Atmosphere

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is about to begin its “Grand Finale” that will bring an end to its 20 years in space, 13 of which have been spent exploring Saturn, its rings and its moons.  It is running out of fuel and to avoid any possible contamination of those moons — some of which may have environments that could support life — the spacecraft is being commanded to enter Saturn’s atmosphere where it will be destroyed.  The last drops of fuel will be used to make 22 dives through the unexplored gap between the planet and its rings to extract some last morsels of scientific data.  The first is on April 26; the last on September 15.

Launched on October 15, 1997, Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004.   Seventeen nations and three space agencies participated in the mission.  Perhaps the best known international contribution is the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Huygens probe that separated from Cassini and landed on the moon Titan in 2005, the first spacecraft to land on a surface in the outer solar system.  Huygens sent back amazing data about Titan and its methane lakes.  Cassini itself revealed that another moon, Enceladus, has a salty ocean under its icy crust.  As Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker explained at a press conference today, cracks in the surface allow geysers of water vapor and organics to spew out.  Cassini flew through one of the plumes in 2015 obtaining tantalizing scientific data.  (Jupiter’s moon Europa is similar.  NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is under
development to investigate it in the 2020s.)

Jim Green, NASA’s planetary science division director, added that the agency is soliciting ideas for future missions to “ocean worlds” like Titan and Enceldaus.  Such a mission would be one of NASA’s “New Frontiers” series of planetary science missions.  The Announcement of Opportunity (AO) opened on December 12, 2016.  Green enthused that Titan, Earth-like in some ways with liquid on the surface and a “water cycle” but with methane instead, and extremely cold temperatures, could harbor an entirely different form of life, so-called “weird life,” based on something other than DNA.  If so, it could hint at other types of life on planets outside our solar system (exoplanets).

A 2007 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, explores the concepts of “weird life.”  One of the report’s authors, Steve Benner, summarized it in lay terms at an Academies workshop in 2010 on sharing the adventure of space science with the public and the “grand questions” yet to be answered.

Saturn and some of its rings are visible from Earth, but it was NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 flyby missions in the early 1980s that provided the first close-up pictures of the planet and the extent of the ring system.  The rings are made of dust and ice particles that could damage Cassini and its instruments.   The 22 dives between the top of Saturn’s atmosphere and the lowest ring pose a risk to the spacecraft, but mission managers decided that since the spacecraft would have to be destroyed in any case, they would use it to obtain every last piece of scientific data possible.

Cassini project manager Earl Maize said today that models suggest the spacecraft has a 98.8 percent chance of surviving the first 21 dives.  It is intended to enter the atmosphere on the 22nd dive on September 15 and be destroyed by atmospheric forces.  Saturn is a gaseous planet so it will not “crash.”  Maize offered an ethereal description — Cassini will “become part of the planet itself.”

Cassini will make one last flyby of Titan to get a gravity assist to put it into the correct position to pass through the gap between the planet and its rings.  Joan Stupak, a Cassini guidance and navigation engineer, demonstrated NASA’s interactive “Eyes” website where anyone can “fly along” with Cassini and other NASA spacecraft. She showed the trajectories she and her team have
devised for the dives and Titan’s influence on them.  The first dive is on April 26.


Illustration of Cassini’s “Grand Finale” orbits of Saturn.   Credit:  NASA JPL-CalTech

Maize pointed out that everyone involved in the project has mixed emotions as the end is in sight — excitement about new discoveries that will be made from the 22 dives, pride in a successful mission that for some has consumed their entire careers, and a sense of loss.  “Humankind has been at Saturn for 13 years. … We’re connected. … That’s going to go away and there’s no substitute for some time to come.”  Spilker has worked on the project since it began three decades ago, starting when her daughter was in kindergarten until now when her daughter has a daughter herself.  It will be “hard to say goodbye to this plucky, capable” spacecraft and the family of scientists, engineers, technicians and others involved in the mission.  Stupak noted that Cassini received its first funding in 1989, the year she was born, so they are the same age and it has been an “incredible privilege” to work on the mission for the past four years.

Cassini cost $3.27 billion including launch, of which $2.6 billion was paid by the United States and $660 million by European partners.  These “flagship” missions are NASA’s most expensive and are sometimes criticized for their high cost.  Supporters argue that they are robustly designed to obtain cutting edge science.  Maize said today Cassini validates the flagship model, demonstrating time and again that it was “ready for anything” and able to obtain unexpected scientific results.  Flagships are “expensive, but the payoff is well worth it.”

Cassini’s cost was controversial in the early 1990s, however.  Originally, it was paired with the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) mission.  NASA believed that by using the same spacecraft design (the Mariner Mark II “bus”), two spacecraft, CRAF and Cassini, could be built for $1.6 billion.  Congress was skeptical and set $1.6 billion as a cost cap, insisting that if the total grew beyond that point, one would have to be cancelled.  That is, indeed, what happened.  Cassini was the survivor.

 

What's Happening in Space Policy April 3-7, 2017

What's Happening in Space Policy April 3-7, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of April 3-7, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week (then will be in recess for the subsequent two weeks).

During the Week

THE BIG SPACE EVENT this week is, of course, the Space Foundation’s annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.  Between all the conference sessions and side events, the entire breadth of space activities — domestic and international — is covered.  There is far too much going on to summarize in this brief article, and the majority of activities require people to be on site, but one event that has been announced by the United Launch Alliance will be webcast and might pique some interest.  On Tuesday at 10:30 am Mountain Time (12:30 pm Eastern), ULA will have a panel discussion on its “vision of a self-sustained space economy within the confines of CisLunar space.”  ULA CEO Tory Bruno will be there along with representatives of AIAA, Made in Space, Offworld, and the Air Force Academy.   Other companies are likely to make big announcements at the Space Symposium, too, so stay tuned throughout the week!

Also in the western part of the United States and also on Tuesday, NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) will hold a press conference on the beginning of the end for the much-loved Cassini spacecraft that has been studying Saturn, its rings and its moons since 2004.  Cassini is running out of fuel and to ensure that it does not crash into and contaminate any of those moons — especially Titan or Enceladus where some scientists believe the conditions for life exist — JPL is commanding Cassini to “crash” into Saturn itself instead.  Saturn is a gaseous planet so “crash” isn’t the right word, but atmospheric forces should destroy it.  To get as much science as possible, Cassini will make 20 deep dives into the Saturnian atmosphere over the next several months collecting data on the unexplored gap between the planet and its rings.  The first is scheduled for April 26; the last on September 15.  The press conference will be webcast.

Meanwhile, back here in Washington, the House is scheduled to take up the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act (H.R. 353) again, this time to approve amendments added by the Senate before it passed that chamber last week.  The bill was largely written in the 114th Congress and the House made quick work of reintroducing it in the 115th Congress and passing it on January 9.  This latest iteration omits a controversial watershed study that held up passage last year and makes a few changes to the House-passed version. The provisions regarding NOAA’s weather satellite programs remain the same. The bill currently is on the House suspension calendar for Tuesday.  Bills on that calendar are expected to pass easily.

Behind the scenes, work will continue to determine the path forward for FY2017 appropriations.  The Continuing Resolution (CR) keeping the government open at the moment expires on April 28.  Since the House and Senate will be on spring break for the middle two weeks of the month, they have this week and the last week in April to decide what they’re going to do.  Although there is a Republican president in the White House now instead of a Democrat, budget politics have not changed very much — it’s just that now it is some Democrats threatening a shutdown instead of Republicans.  The arguments are the same — Republicans want to increase defense spending.  Period.  Democrats insist that if defense will get more, then non-defense also should get more and definitely should not be cut the way the Trump Administration has proposed for FY2018.  

The battle right now, however, is over the rest of FY2017, which began on October 1, 2016 so is half over already.  The appropriations committees had pretty much decided what to do with FY2017, but President Trump has submitted a FY2017 supplemental request for an additional $30 billion in defense spending and $3 billion for Homeland Security that would be partially offset by $18 billion in cuts to non-defense programs.  Since only 5 months will remain in FY2017 at the end of April, those cuts would have a dramatic impact since they would have to be absorbed in such a short period of time.  Bottom line?  It’s a familiar quandary.  Will they pass another CR through the end of the year or an omnibus bill that combines 11 of the 12 regular appropriations bills?  (One, and only one, FY2017 appropriations bill passed already — Military Construction/Veterans Administration.  It was incorporated into the first CR passed last fall.)  Or will they pass nothing and much of the government will come to a halt?  With the level of discord within the Republican Party not to mention between Republicans and Democrats, we’re not making any prognostications.

Funding the government through CRs is harshly criticized by everyone, which may come as a surprise considering how often it is done (because they can’t reach agreement on anything else).   The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) wants to emphasize just how bad another CR would be for DOD and is holding a hearing specifically on that topic Wednesday morning: “Damage to the Military from a Continuing Resolution.”  Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Miley, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert Neller, and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson are the witnesses.  A high-powered panel to be sure. 

The House passed a revised FY2017 defense appropriations bill in March, actually, and it is conceivable that bill alone could pass with the other 10 wrapped into an omnibus or extended by a CR.  Congress has a number of options to work with, the key is getting sufficient votes to pass one of them.  At the moment, the Senate still needs 60 votes to pass an appropriations bill (meaning at least 8 Democrat/Independent aye votes).  In the House, the Freedom Caucus objects to the total level of government spending, so the House Republican leadership may well need Democratic votes to get anything passed.  Which has been true for some time. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for any we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.   [For those of you wondering what’s happening with the postponed OA-7 launch we mentioned last week, a NASA official said at a NASA Advisory Council meeting that it will not launch before mid-April.  A specific launch date and associated dates for pre-launch briefings have not been announced.]

Monday-Thursday, April 3-6

Monday-Friday, April 3-7

Tuesday, April 4

Wednesday, April 5

Thursday, April 6

 

NASA Continues Journey to Mars Planning

NASA Continues Journey to Mars Planning

The Trump Administration has said very little about its plans for NASA’s human spaceflight program other than terminating the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), but NASA continues to shape its architecture for sending people to Mars in the 2030s.  The status of that planning was presented to a NASA Advisory Council (NAC) committee today.

Bill Gerstenmaier and Jim Free of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) spoke to NAC’s Human Exploration and Operations committee this morning.  Two of Gerstenmaier’s slides summarized current plans for launches of the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion, and associated systems — including a lunar “gateway” — from 2018 to 2030 and beyond.  All would culminate in a human mission to orbit Mars in 2033.


Screengrab from NASA presentation to NASA Advisory Council HEO Committee March 28, 2017. 


Screengrab from NASA presentation to NASA Advisory Council HEO Committee March 28, 2017. 

One interesting feature is that the first two Exploration Mission launches, EM-1 and EM-2, are separated on the slide by the launch of the Europa Clipper mission. That is notionally expected in 2022.  The schedule fits with NASA’s official plan to launch EM-1 in 2018 and its commitment date to launch EM-2 in 2023, but the agency is working toward an internal deadline of 2021 for the EM-2 launch and Congress is providing additional funding to achieve it.  The slide suggests that NASA does not want to go too far in promising the earlier launch date.   The slide also shows EM-1 as a 25-60 day mission to a Distant Lunar Retrograde Orbit, not a crewed mission, which NASA is currently studying.

Another feature is the lunar “gateway” NASA recently has begun discussing.  Free emphasized today that the gateway would not be another International Space Station (ISS) in lunar orbit.  It would be smaller and human-tended, not permanently inhabited — a location from which to stage missions to Mars and possibly to the lunar surface.

“Robust international partnerships” and “commercial capabilities” are essential ingredients of the plan, he added.

The humans-to-Mars mission in 2033 could involve a Venus flyby, they said.  It would be an “out and back” mission, but the crew would remain in Mars orbit for a period of time. That differentiates it from the Inspiration Mars mission proposed by Dennis Tito several years ago.  In that scenario, two people would have made a slingshot flyby of Mars, not enter orbit.  Tito’s original idea was for a privately funded mission that would launch in 2018, but within a year Tito decided that it would need to be a public-private partnership with NASA shouldering 70 percent of the cost.  The conceptual launch date slipped to 2021 when Mars and the Earth were not as well aligned and the spacecraft would have needed a gravity assist from Venus.  House Science, Space, and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) was a strong supporter of the idea.  Little has been heard about it recently, but this NASA concept is sure to prompt comparisons.

NASA describes the path to Mars in terms of phases and the Asteroid Redirect Crewed Mission (ARCM) at one time was to signal the end of Phase 1 when experience was gained in cis-lunar space (the Earth-Moon region).  President Trump has proposed terminating the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), however, and NASA is reconfiguring its plans accordingly.   ARM comprises ARCM and the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM).  ARRM was to launch first and robotically relocate a boulder from the surface of an asteroid into lunar orbit where ARCM astronauts would visit it to obtain a sample for return to Earth.  The mission had few supporters in Congress and the proposal to terminate it is not likely to generate much opposition.

However, ARM involved the development of high power solar electric propulsion (SEP) and that part of the program is expected to continue.  The “40 kw Power/Prop bus” shown on the slides reflects that effort.  High power SEP is useful for many types of missions in Earth orbit and deep space. Michele Gates, ARM program director, is on the NAC/HEO committee’s schedule tomorrow (Wednesday) to give a briefing on in-space power and propulsion.

Concern has been expressed over the low launch rate for SLS for fear that launch teams will lose their proficiency.  A launch rate of, at most, one per year has been projected.  Today, however, Free said that the latest plan is for one crewed SLS/Orion launch per year beginning in 2023 plus one cargo SLS launch per year beginning in 2027, which would increase the cadence to two per year in support of the human spaceflight program. Some SLS supporters believe that additional uses of SLS will materialize, such as for science missions, that could further increase the launch rate, although the cost per launch is not yet known.

The key to all of this is how much support the Trump Administration will provide for such activities.  The President’s budget blueprint is for a status quo NASA human spaceflight program.  Funding for SLS/Orion would remain essentially at its current level.  During a signing ceremony last week for the NASA Transition Authorization Act, Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, told the President that just as President Eisenhower is remembered for creating the interstate highway system, he (Trump) would be remembered for creating an interplanetary highway system.  Trump’s response was “Well that sounds exciting. First we want to fix our highways.  We have to fix our highways.”

What's Happening in Space Policy March 27-31, 2017

What's Happening in Space Policy March 27-31, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of March 27-31, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.   The House and Senate will be in session.

During the Week

Before we get started on what’s coming up, in case you missed it, yesterday President Trump used his Weekly Address to talk about NASA.  He signed the NASA Transition Authorization Act into law earlier in the week and the roughly 5 minute video continues the theme of expressing his admiration for NASA while sharing no information on his plans for the agency.  Apollo, Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are featured. JWST is, in fact, the only future program mentioned even though the President says “the future belongs to us.”  He is speaking generically at that point, though, not about the space program specifically.  Nothing about the International Station Station even though there’s footage from the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.  A space shuttle launch is shown, but nothing about SLS or any other launch vehicles.  The only science other than astrophysics that makes it into the video requires the viewer to be sufficiently in-the-know to recognize the JPL jubilation at Curiosity’s successful landing on Mars.  Still, Presidents don’t often talk about the space program in their Weekly Addresses or anywhere else, so it’s worth a look. This was done the day after the Republican Obamacare repeal effort failed, so perhaps he was looking for some good news to convey.  He says at the end that “if Americans can achieve these things, there is no problem we cannot solve.”

Onward.  This coming week is another space policy extravaganza.   Starting with national security space, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) will hold a hearing on the nomination of former Rep. Heather Wilson to be Secretary of the Air Force.  Trump announced her nomination back in January, but it has taken this long for all the paperwork to get to the committee. None of the service secretaries are in place right now.  The nominees for Secretary of the Army and Secretary of the Navy withdrew because they could not disentangle themselves from their business interests.  Wilson’s hearing is Thursday morning.

On the other side of Capitol Hill, a HASC subcommittee will hold a joint hearing with a House Homeland Security subcommittee on “Threats to Space Assets and Implications for Homeland Security,” certainly an interesting topic.  Witnesses are the former commandant of the Coast Guard (Adm. Thad Allen), the former deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Joseph Nimmich), and the former commander of U.S. Air Force Space Command (Gen. William Shelton).  That’s on Wednesday afternoon.  Allen is on the GPS Advisory Board, so that surely will be one of the topics.  GPS — where would we all be without it?

On the civil space side, this is Space Science Week at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.  All five of the standing committees that deal with space meet individually and jointly Tuesday-Thursday and there is a public lecture on Wednesday evening.   At the public lecture, JPL’s Kevin Hand will talk about the Search for Life in Oceans Beyond Earth.  The lecture and the other Space Science Week events will take place at the National Academy of Sciences building on Constitution Avenue (not at the Keck Center on 5th Street).

Space law is on the docket this week, too. The Legal Subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space begins its annual two-week meeting in Vienna, Austria.  The first day features a space law symposium sponsored by the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL).  Closer to home, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is holding an afternoon symposium on Thursday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.   Henry Hetrzfeld (GWU), Steve Mirmina (NASA), Pamela Meredith (American Univ.), Ray Bender (independent arbitrator and mediator), Courtney Bailey (NASA) and Pete Hays (DOD PDSA staff) are the speakers.  SAIS doesn’t often weigh in on space law or space policy issues.  Space law does seem to be in vogue these days, spurred by the anniversary and the innovative ideas commercial companies are espousing for space exploration and utilization and associated legal issues.

The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) meets, more briefly than usual, on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.  Two of its committees meet earlier in the week, including Human Exploration and Operations (HEO).  NAC advises the NASA Administrator and a new Administrator has not yet been nominated.  Robert Lightfoot is Acting Administrator.  Gen. Lester Lyles (USAF, Ret.) is the new Chair of NAC, succeeding Ken Bowersox, who served as Acting Chair after Steve Squyres stepped down last April.  Bowersox remains on NAC and resumes his position as chair of the HEO committee.  Lyles was an ex officio member of NAC for many years because he chaired the National Academies Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB).  He completed his two terms as ASEB chair last year and now will continue advising NASA in this new capacity.  Public sessions of the NAC meetings are useful for catching up on NASA programs and the issues NASA managers are facing.  Anyone can listen in by telecon and watch via WebEx.  

We’ll stop there because this is getting so long, but there are MANY other really interesting meetings on tap this week.

All the events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.  In particular we are awaiting word on when the OA-7 cargo mission to the International Space Station will launch.  The launch, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral, has been delayed three times due to technical problems with one thing or another.  When a new launch date is announced, we’ll post it.

Monday, March 27

Monday, March 27 – Friday, April 7

Tuesday, March 28

Tuesday-Wednesday, March 28-29

Tuesday-Thursday, March 28-30

Wednesday, March 29

Wednesday-Friday, March 29-31

Thursday, March 30

Thursday-Friday, March 30-31

What's Happening in Space Policy March 19-24, 2017

What's Happening in Space Policy March 19-24, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of March 19-24, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

It’s another one of those super-busy weeks, especially Wednesday.  Lots of action is in store inside Washington, outside Washington, and in Earth orbit.

Two are happening today (Sunday).  First is a Town Hall meeting at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LSPC) near Houston that is discussing the Science Definition Team report on a Europa lander, a topic expected to be of congressional interest during debate on the FY2018 budget request. President Trump’s budget blueprint specifically says it does NOT fund the lander, only the orbiter/flyby Europa Clipper. Second is the return to Earth of SpaceX’s CRS-10 Dragon spacecraft.  It took about 5,500 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) last month and is returning 5,400 pounds of results from scientific experiments and other items needed back on Earth.  Dragon is the only one of the four cargo spacecraft that service ISS that was designed to survive reentry (since SpaceX designed it from the beginning to support crews).

Dragon’s return is just one part of a busy time on the ISS.  Another cargo mission, Orbital ATK’s OA-7, is scheduled for launch on either Thursday or Friday (the exact date is TBD depending on availability of the Eastern Test Range from which the launch will take place aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V).  At the same time, astronauts on the U.S. segment of the ISS are gearing up for a series of three spacewalks.  The first is on Friday.  NASA will hold a news conference on Wednesday at Johnson Space Center to explain what they will be doing.  NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will all take part in the spacewalks.  The other two are on April 2 and April 7.

The Europa lander Town Hall mentioned above is just the start of the week-long LPSC conference at The Woodlands, just outside Houston.  LPSC is the premier conference where planetary scientists gather to present the results of their research and talk about upcoming missions.  Unfortunately, it looks like there are no webcasts, so one must be there in person to hear about all the new findings and discoveries.  [There is a notice on the conference’s website warning that no live streaming of presentations is permitted.]  NASA headquarters representatives will hold their own Town Hall meeting on Monday and NASA’s Venus Exploration Analysis Group’s (VEXAG’s) Town Hall is on Thursday.

Back in Washington, brevity requires picking just two events to highlight, both among those taking place on Wednesday.  First, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI) will hold a day-long symposium on “Space Security:  Issues for the New Administration.”  It has a terrific lineup of speakers from CSIS, PSSI, the U.S. military, Congress, academia (U.S. and Japan), the Japanese and French governments, the European Space Agency, industry, non-profits and FFRDCs. The four main topics are space crisis dynamics, cooperation in space and missile defense, future of space launch, and space situational awareness and space traffic management.   Luckily, this event WILL be livestreamed so people everywhere can benefit. 

Second, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis gets his first chance in his new position to publicly brief the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on the state of U.S. military readiness and DOD’s budget requirements.   Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford (USMC) will also testify.  Not sure how much, if any, of the discussion will be about space activities, but it’s a great way to get the lay of the land from their perspectives. The committee typically webcasts its hearings on its website.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below. Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.

Sunday, March 19

Monday, March 20

Monday-Friday, March 20-24

Tuesday, March 21

Wednesday, March 22

Thursday, March 23

  • VEXAG Town Hall meeting at LPSC, The Woodlands, TX, “lunchtime”
  • Two OA-7 Pre-Launch Briefings, Kennedy Space Center, FL, 1:00 pm ET (What’s on Board) and 4:00 pm ET (Mission Status), broadcast on NASA TV (could take place a day earlier if the launch date moves up a day)
  • [The OA-7 launch could take place today, but is currently scheduled for tomorrow]

Friday, March 24

  • ISS Spacewalk (1st of 3, Kimbrough and Pesquet), Earth orbit, 7:00 am ET (NASA TV coverage begins 6:30 am ET)
  • Launch of Orbital ATK OA-7 Cargo Mission to ISS, Cape Canaveral, FL, 9:00 pm ET (launch could move forward one day to March 23)  NASA TV launch coverage begins 8:00 pm ET, post-launch coverage begins at 10:30 pm ET