Category: International

Russians Understand Proton-M Failure, But Not Progress M-27M

Russians Understand Proton-M Failure, But Not Progress M-27M

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 27, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 27, 2015 6:05 pm ET

The Russian State Commission investigating the May 16, 2015 Proton-M failure will make its report to the government on Friday, May 29.  Although the results are not official yet, human error in the manufacturing process is suspected.  Meanwhile, experts are still trying to determine what caused the April 28 Soyuz-2.1a failure that doomed the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft.

What is known publicly so far about the Proton-M failure is that the third stage failed 497 seconds into the flight.  The third stage, the Briz-M upper stage and Mexico’s MexSat-1 communications satellite fell to Earth over Russia’s Baikal region.  All of the pieces apparently burned up during the fall from 161 kilometers altitude.  Russian authorities reported that after searching the area, no debris was located.

TASS reports today that the State Commission established to discover
the cause of the accident will submit its detailed findings to the
Russian government on May 29.  Quoting an unnamed source in the Russian
space industry. “This is, undoubtedly, a human error. The fault occurred
in the manufacturing process.” 

Mexico contracted for the launch to geostationary orbit through International Launch Services (ILS), which markets Proton launch services globally.  While Mexican officials were philosophical about the loss, which was 100 percent insured, the next ILS customer in line, Inmarsat, clearly was not pleased.

Proton-M is also used to launch Russia’s own geostationary communications satellites.  Russia’s Communications Minister, Nikolai Nikiforov, said today that those launches will be delayed 2-3 months, “but this is not critical.”

That was the latest in a string of Russian launch failures since December 2010 and came less than two weeks after the Progress M-27M accident. 
Loaded with three tons of supplies for the International Space Station
(ISS) crew,  something went wrong when the robotic cargo spacecraft separated from its Soyuz-2.1a rocket.  Progress M-27M was placed into an incorrect orbit and reentered over the Pacific Ocean on May 7.  

The cause for that failure remains unclear a month later, even whether it was the rocket, the spacecraft, or an interaction between the two.  TASS quoted an unnamed Russian industry source today as saying that “more than 50 deviations from the design documentation were found during the manufacture of the rocket and spacecraft” because necessary materials or components were not available, for example.  “This does not mean that non-compliance … may lead to an accident.  This suggests uncoordinated cooperation and the existence of a large number of duplicating components.”

Russian experts are anxious to solve the riddle since ISS operations rely on four or five Progress cargo flights per year in addition to cargo deliveries by American and Japanese spacecraft.  A different version of the Soyuz rocket is used to launch crews, but changes to the schedule for both crew and cargo flights to ISS already have been made.

NASA refers to Progress M-27M as Progress 59 (59P) because it is the 59th Progress to resupply ISS.  At the moment, Russia plans to launch the next in series, Progress M-28M/60P in July, about a month earlier than originally planned in order to get supplies to the ISS crew, but all dates are tentative until the cause of the failure is understood and corrected.

Last Updated: May 27, 2015 6:05 pm ET
Air Force Certifies SpaceX for National Security Launches

Air Force Certifies SpaceX for National Security Launches

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 26, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 26, 2015 7:19 pm ET

The Air Force certified SpaceX to launch national security satellites today.   The long-anticipated certification makes the company eligible to compete against the United Launch Alliance (ULA), which has held a virtual monopoly on launching the nation’s most critical military and intelligence satellites since 2006.

SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk thanked the Air Force for its confidence in the company, while Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James called it a “very important milestone for the Air Force and the Department of Defense.”

Although SpaceX already was awarded two Air Force contracts, for the launch of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) earlier this year and an upcoming launch of  a Space Test Program satellite, those were not part of the coveted “EELV-class” launches performed by ULA.   ULA builds and launches the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, so-called Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELVs).   Atlas V and Delta IV were sold separately by their respective manufacturers, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, until 2006 when a dwindling market threatened both.  ULA was the solution.  Jointly owned by the two companies and with a guaranteed level of financial support from the government, it has an impeccable record of launches. 

The launches are quite expensive, however, and with the emergence of SpaceX, questions began to arise as to whether competition might drive the prices down.  Russia’s invasion of Crimea last year added another twist.  Russian RD-180 engines power the Atlas V and many in Congress argued that the launch of U.S. national security satellites should not be dependent on a foreign country, especially Russia.   The 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requires the Air Force to stop using RD-180s by 2019 (although waivers are allowed under certain circumstance).   Debate continues to swirl around that requirement, but a transformation in the launch services industry has begun. 

The announcement today does not guarantee a sea-change in the launch services market, but opens that opportunity for SpaceX and potentially other launch service providers.  Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, Commander of Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and Air Force Program Executive Officer for Space said the certification process “provides a path” for them to “demonstrate the capability to design, produce, qualify, and deliver a new launch system” that provides the mission assurance necessary for national security payloads.

The Air Force repeatedly stated last year that SpaceX’s certification would be complete by December 2014.  For reasons that remain unclear, it took another 5 months, but is finally done.

Last Updated: May 26, 2015 7:19 pm ET
NASA Chooses Instruments to Determine if Europa Is Habitable — And What is That Brown Gunk?

NASA Chooses Instruments to Determine if Europa Is Habitable — And What is That Brown Gunk?

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 26, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: June 17, 2015 10:47 pm ET

NASA announced the winners of the science instrument selection process for its mission to study Jupiter’s moon Europa today (May 26, 2015).  NASA officials said the mission “must” determine if Europa is habitable.  Part of that is discovering the nature of the “brown gunk” on Europa’s surface.

Europa project scientist Curt Niebur said they have theories about the brown gunk, but will not know for certain until the Europa mission can provide more information.   It is thought to be residue from the liquid ocean scientists are convinced lies beneath Europa’s icy crust.  The material is thought to make its way to the surface via fractures in the ice just as lava makes its way to the surface of Earth.  If so, studying the gunk will reveal the composition of the ocean.

Observations using the Hubble Space Telescope also recently revealed plumes of material being ejected from Europa.  Little is known of these unpredictable plumes, but some of the instruments announced today will focus on characterizing them and determining their constituents, which will provide more data about what is under the crust.

One message today is that the instruments on this mission, which will make 45 flybys of Europa over a 2.5 year period, will be able to reveal Europa’s secrets without touching down on the surface.   Niebur described two of the instruments – a magnetometer and a series of three Faraday cups – as taking an MRI of Europa’s interior structure.  Using them, scientists will be able to determine the depth and saltiness of Europa’s ocean without “dipping our instruments into the ocean just as a doctor can see what’s going on inside your body using an MRI.”

The number and size of instruments that can be accommodated were determined by their total mass and power requirements.   Out of 33 proposals, nine instruments were chosen. They and their principal investigators are:

  • Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding.  Dr. Joseph Westlake, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL)
  • Interior Characterization of Europa Using Magnetometry.  Dr. Carol Raymond, Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)
  • Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa. Dr. Diana Blaney, JPL
  • Europa Imaging System.  Dr. Elizabeth Turtle, APL
  • Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding:  Ocean to Near-Surface.  Dr. Donald Blankenship, University of Texas, Austin
  • Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System.  Dr. Philip Christensen, Arizona State University, Tempe
  • Mass Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration/Europa.  Dr. Jack (Hunter) Waite, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), San Antonio
  • Ultraviolet Spectrograph/Europa.  Dr. Kurt Retherford, SwRI
  • Surface Dust Mass Analyzer.  Dr. Sascha Kempf, University of Colorado, Boulder.

An additional instrument was selected for technology development:  the Space Environmental and Composition Investigation near the Europan Surface, led by Dr. Mehdi Benna at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Europa stirs fascination because of the possibility that conditions to support life might exist there.  NASA Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green explained that Europa’s salty ocean is thought to have more than twice as much water as Earth’s oceans and “it could be a very habitable place if life indeed started on that body many billions of years ago.”  Niebur stressed, however, that the instruments cannot detect life itself.  They can find “indications” of life, but “we don’t have a life detector.”  In fact, he added, there is not even scientific consensus on what to measure in order to detect life with confidence.

When asked what would happen next if the Europa mission did prove there is life, Green joked “I would immediately retire.”   He went on to say that if there is life is on Europa, then it must be “everywhere” in our galaxy and the universe.  It would be an “enormous step forward” in understanding our place in the universe.

A mission to Europa was the second priority for a flagship planetary science mission in the most recent National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey on planetary science.   Returning samples from the surface of Mars got top billing, in part because of the high cost of a Europa mission, then estimated at more than $4 billion.   The report recommended that Europa advocates downsize the mission to make it more affordable, yielding the “Europa Clipper” concept now being used as the baseline design.  Green declined to name a firm cost estimate today, offering only that it is about $2 billion (not including launch), but NASA is not able to commit to a price-tag as this early stage.

Niebur said that NASA plans to spend $110 million over three years to advance the nine instruments selected today at which time they will reassess whether these instruments can be ready in time for launch.

Niebur was asked about any commonality between these instrument selections and what will be carried on the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE).  He replied that the two missions are complementary, but have different objectives.  JUICE will study Jupiter’s moons Ganymede and Callisto, and make only two flybys of Europa.  NASA’s mission focuses only on Europa and will make 45 flybys.

Green dodged a question about when the mission will be launched.  The answer involves politics as much as science and engineering.  NASA and Congress both use the NRC Decadal Surveys as their “bibles” on what science missions have the top priority.  Consequently, NASA is focusing on Mars and Europa was not in its budget plans.   Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA, is an ardent Europa supporter, however, and has led efforts to add money to NASA’s budget to get the mission initiated and launched sooner rather than later.  Congress added $75 million in FY2013 (none was requested), $80 million in FY2014 (none was requested) and $85 million in FY2015 ($15 million was requested, yielding a total of $100 million).  The House Appropriations Committee’s recently approved FY2016 NASA budget recommendation is to add $110 million in FY2016 to the $30 million requested (for a total of $140 million) with a directive to launch the mission in 2022 using the Space Launch System (SLS).  NASA insists it does not have the funding in its “outyear” projections
to meet that schedule. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden typically
says the mission will launch in the mid-2020s.

House appropriators also designated $25 million of the $625 million allocated for NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (a reduction from the $725 million requested) to be spent on icy satellites surface technology and test beds. Green said today that NASA is performing “elementary” studies of landed missions, but NASA first wants the global view of Europa that this flyby mission will provide.  NASA’s Galileo mission sent back “tantalizing” glimpses of Europa’s surface, but not in the detail needed to execute a landing.

From a space policy standpoint, the Europa mission could go down in history as the first NASA space science flagship mission funded primarily by annual congressional direction rather than based on administration requests and long term planning.   NASA officials repeatedly say they cannot plan a program based on a hope that each year Congress will add funding for it, but at the moment they are in that position.

If Europa is to be funded by Congress adding money each year, and it is a zero-sum game where NASA’s total budget does not rise to accommodate the unrequested funding, the question is what other NASA activities will be cut to afford it.  In the FY2016 House Appropriations bill, NASA’s earth science program bears the brunt of cuts to afford Europa and other congressional priorities.  Whether the Senate will follow suit is a significant question.  Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), the top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee as well as the subcommittee that funds NASA, is an avid earth science supporter.   She may be less willing to cut earth science to pay for a Europa mission.  Whether the two chambers can reach agreement to increase the total amount of money available to NASA instead – eliminating the zero-sum aspects of the equation – involves complicated high stakes budget politics that will play out over the next several months.

Correction:  An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the Ultraviolet Spectrograph/Europa PI.  He is Kurt Retherford, not Rutherford.

Last Updated: Jun 17, 2015 10:47 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy May 25-June 5, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy May 25-June 5, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 24, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 24, 2015 6:20 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy events for the new TWO weeks, May 25-June 5, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  Congress is in recess this week for the Memorial Day holiday.  The Senate returns on Sunday, May 31; the House on Monday, June 1.

During the Weeks

At last, a relatively quiet week after all the recent busy-ness.  Monday (May 25) is the observance of Memorial Day and federal government offices are closed.  Congress is in recess for the week despite a fractious Senate session that lasted until the wee hours on Saturday over a non-space related topic — extension of government surveillance authorities under the Patriot Act — that came to no resolution.  Those authorities expire at midnight May 31, so the Senate will return for a rare Sunday session on May 31 to try and find a way forward.  The House returns on Monday, June 1. The Senate already has declined to take up a House-passed measure addressing the topic so it looks like the authorities will indeed expire.  It’s a matter of what bill (if any) the Senate can pass, what the House is willing to accept as a compromise, and how long the process takes.

But that debate is outside the scope of this space policy website.  Suffice it to say that the congressional schedule for when they return is difficult to predict.

NASA has two interesting events this week, though.  First is the announcement of the science instruments for the Europa mission.  NASA had not planned to execute a Europa mission just now, but Congress feels otherwise.  It added money for it the past two years (and appears likely to do so again this year), which led the White House to give NASA permission to include mission formulation in the FY2016 budget request. NASA is moving forward with choosing the science payload.   It will be announced on Tuesday (May 26) at 2:00 pm ET.   The next day, NASA TV will air coverage of the ISS crew moving a module (using Canadarm2) from one docking port to another as the ISS is reconfigured to enable the commercial crew vehicles to dock there beginning in 2017.

The schedule for the first week of June is still filling up, but the list below shows what we know about today (Sunday, May 25).

Tuesday, May 26

Tuesday-Wednesday, May 26-27

Wednesday, May 27

Monday, June 1

Tuesday, June 2

Thursday, June 4

Last Updated: May 24, 2015 6:20 pm ET
House Passes Commercial Space Bill

House Passes Commercial Space Bill

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 21, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 21, 2015 8:07 pm ET

The House passed the Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship (SPACE) Act, H.R. 2262, today after a two-hour debate.  An amendment by Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) to replace the language in H.R. 2262 with that in a related Senate bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday, S. 1297, was rejected.

The floor debate on the SPACE Act, which is sponsored by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), reflected the same deep divisions between Republicans and Democrats that were evident in the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee markup last week.  House SS&T Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Space Subcommittee Chairman Steve Palazzo (R-MS) are original co-sponsors of the legislation.

The committee marked up H.R 2262 and three other commercial space bills that were rolled together into the version of H.R. 2262 that was debated on the floor and passed today.  The other three were H.R. 1508 (property rights to materials mined on asteroids), H.R. 2261 (commercial remote sensing), and H.R. 2263 (renaming and expanding the duties of the Office of Space Commercialization in the Department of Commerce). 

As introduced, H.R. 2262 was a broadly-based update of the Commercial Space Launch Act and had only Republican sponsors.  It was approved by the committee on a party-line vote.  H.R. 1508, which was sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat (who does not serve on this committee), also passed on a party-line vote.  The other two bills were less controversial and were approved by voice vote.

Democratic complaints about the bills in general are both procedural and substantive.  House SS&T Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Space Subcommittee Ranking Member Edwards complained in committee and on the floor today that insufficient hearings were held on these topics and no subcommittee markups were held that might have informed the debate and led to better bills.  On the substantive side, they believe that the legislation gives industry everything it wants with scant attention, for example, to the safety of individuals who might fly on commercial human space vehicles.   They also object to the property rights provision for companies that want to mine asteroids, arguing that more consideration is needed of the implications for U.S. responsibilities under the Outer Space Treaty.

While Republicans proudly displayed letters from several commercial space companies and organizations that support the bill, Johnson did not find that surprising, protesting during the markup that the bill “came straight from industry.”

Johnson and Edwards appealed to that industry to support the Edwards substitute amendment.  They argued that while the Senate bill is not perfect, it is sufficient and since it has bipartisan support, that is the bill the Senate will pass and the chance that the two chambers would iron out their differences in a conference committee are slim. Consequently, no bill would become law.  Johnson said in an op-ed in Space News yesterday that “I hope the members of the commercial space industry will recognize the golden, but fleeting, opportunity they have been given” and support the Edwards amendment.   Edwards echoed that today, saying her amendment offered “a golden opportunity to move past partisan posturing” and actually get a bill passed and signed into law.

During the debate, Jim Muncy (@JamesMuncy), a lobbyist for the commercial space industry, tweeted in response to @SpcPlcyOnline tweets summarizing Edwards’ arguments, that “Rep Edwards is unfortunately mistaken.  Industry appreciates the Senate’s work on S1297 and the House’s work on HR2262” and “Industry prefers for the process to continue, presumably to a conference.”

The Edwards amendment was defeated 173-236 on largely party lines.  For Democrats, 170 voted in favor of the amendment and three against.  For Republicans, three voted in favor and 233 against.

Six other relatively minor amendments were adopted during floor debate by voice vote.  The texts of all the amendments that were “made in order” for the floor debate are on the House Rules Committee’s website.

The bill, as amended, passed the House with more Democratic support.  The vote was 284-133, with 48 Democrats voting in favor and 130 Democrats against, and 236 Republicans voting in favor and three against.

House SS&T Democrats issued a press release after the vote asserting that the bill takes an “unbalanced approach” and is “heavily skewed towards industry’s desires.” 

House SS&T Republicans issued a press release praising passage of the bill and the bipartisan support in the final vote.  Committee chairman Smith said the bill “will encourage the private sector to launch rockets, take risks, and shoot for the heavens.”

The Senate bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee covers some of the same topics as the House bill, but especially with the infusion of the other three House bills into H.R. 2262, the two pieces of legislation are quite different.  One major difference is the length of the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight during which the FAA is prohibited from issuing new regulations.  The current prohibition ends on September 30, 2015.  The Senate bill extends it to 2020.  The House bill extends it to 2025.  Advocates of the more lengthy extension (some of whom want the prohibition to be permanent) argue that new regulations could stifle this new industry and experience is needed to inform any new regulations.  Those who want a shorter extension insist that the FAA must be able to step in to ensure safety as the industry evolves.

Last Updated: May 21, 2015 8:07 pm ET
Bolden: "If We Don't Pull Together, We're Not Going to Mars"

Bolden: "If We Don't Pull Together, We're Not Going to Mars"

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 18, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 18, 2015 7:23 pm ET

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden made an impassioned plea today for Congress and the White House to work together or the goal of sending humans to Mars will never be realized.

Bolden’s remarks to the Space Transportation Association (STA) were loosely focused on the status of congressional deliberations over NASA’s FY2016 budget request, but he spent most of his time talking about the future of human exploration and the goal of sending people to Mars in the 2030s.  President Obama proclaimed that goal in an April 2010 speech at Kennedy Space Center and Congress agreed in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, but the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue continue to argue over NASA priorities and what level of specificity the agency should have at this stage on the steps to getting there.

The 2015 NASA Authorization Act that passed the House in February (H.R. 810) requires NASA to submit a “Human Exploration Roadmap” to Congress within 180 days of the bill becoming law.  It includes an extensive list of what the roadmap must contain and requires it be updated every 2 years.

A variety of terms are used to describe the plan or pathway to get to Mars, including roadmap, strategy, architecture, and design reference mission or architecture.  Each has its own nuanced definition.  Today Bolden used the word “architecture” and flatly refused to provide one, insisting it would be “irresponsible” because it is too early to “commit to a specific architecture.”  He believes we are not ready to go Mars now.   Experience needs to be gained by operating in cis-lunar space (between the Earth and the Moon) and technologies will advance in the meantime. 

The most recent NASA design reference architecture (DRA) was issued in 2009. Currently NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate has PowerPoint presentations on its “Evolvable Mars Campaign” and soon will issue a document entitled “Pioneering Space” to explain the outlines of what it expects to do in the next several decades.  It uses “Journey to Mars” as an overarching slogan.  They are not specific enough to qualify as an “architecture” or “roadmap,” however.

What is most needed is for Congress and the White House to work together, Bolden stressed.  Half way through his talk and again at the end he implored: “If we don’t pull together, we’re not going to Mars.”

On other topics, Bolden —

  • said the “biggest area of heartburn” between the Obama Administration and Congress right now regarding NASA’s FY2016 budget request is earth science funding.  Several times he expounded on the achievements of NASA’s earth science program — mentioning the U.S.-Japan Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) missions in particular.  He commented that NASA does not make earth science policy and tries to stay out of its politics, the agency just wants to provide the best science in the world: “Decimating earth science and saying we’re going to go to Mars is not the right way to do it.”  (The House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved, on a party-line vote, a 2016-2017 NASA authorization bill that has deep cuts to NASA’s earth science program on the basis that NASA’s unique mission is space exploration, not studying Earth.)
  • defended the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) and the decision for the United States not to return humans to the lunar surface.  Humans on the lunar surface makes sense for activities like in-situ resource utilization, but he wants the United States to “empower” international and commercial partners to take on that task.  NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) can take “all kinds of stuff” to lunar orbit, but the partners need to develop the lander:  “The United States can’t do everything.”
  • expressed confidence in the Russians and his “friend” Roscosmos head Igor Komarov despite recent failures.  His only concern is if these failures signify a breakdown in quality control.  NASA’s ISS program manager Mike Suffredini is taking part in Russia’s investigation of the Progress M-27M failure, so he feels confident that NASA will have the information it needs.
  • stressed the need for continued operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through at least 2024, but also for the commercial sector to determine what comes next for low Earth orbit infrastructure because ISS has a finite lifetime and “NASA is getting out” of that business.
  • urged Congress again to fully fund the $1.24 billion request for commercial crew (the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee approved $1 billion instead).
  • responded to a question about whether a robotic Mars sample return mission is required before sending humans to Mars (to provide better knowledge of the properties of the Martian surface) with a firm no.  He says that he knows many scientists disagree with that point of view, but he is adamant that step is not necessary, just as obtaining a sample of the lunar surface was not required before the Apollo 11 crew landed on the Moon.
Last Updated: May 18, 2015 7:23 pm ET
Komarov to Head Proton Failure Investigation, Second Try For ISS Reboost Tonight EDT

Komarov to Head Proton Failure Investigation, Second Try For ISS Reboost Tonight EDT

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 17, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 17, 2015 12:07 pm ET

Russia is moving forward in its attempts to understand and remedy the two setbacks it suffered yesterday — the failure of Progress M-26M to boost the International Space Station’s (ISS’s) orbit and the failure of a Proton-M rocket that destroyed Mexico’s MexSat-1 communications satellite.

A second attempt at the ISS orbit reboost will be made tonight (May 17) beginning at 8:30 pm EDT (May 18, 03:30 Moscow Time) according to Russia’s official news agency TASS.  The Progress M-26M spacecraft that is attached to the ISS was supposed to raise the ISS orbit by 2.8 kilometers yesterday (Moscow Time, Friday evening EDT) by firing its engines for about 15 minutes.  The routine operation failed, however, because the engines did not ignite. 

Separately, Roscosmos head Igor Komarov will chair the Russian State Commission investigating the failure of a Proton-M rocket yesterday.  The Proton-M’s third-stage failed 497 seconds into the launch; it, the Briz-M upper stage and MexSat-1 fell back to Earth from an altitude of 161 kilometers.  Russian authorities searched the Baikal region of Russia for debris that might have survived, but most burned up during reentry.

Mexican telecommunications officials, the customer for this commercial launch brokered through International Launch Services (ILS), were philosophical about the loss of their satellite, which was fully insured.  They remain confident they will be able to provide the services promised by the MEXSAT system once the next satellite in the series (called Morelos-3 or MexSat-2) is launched later this year. That launch will be on an Atlas V from Cape Canaveral provided by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services.

The State Commission is charged with finding out what went wrong and making recommendations on who to hold responsible.  Komarov replaced Oleg Ostapenko as head of Roscosmos in January after Ostapenko was relieved of duties because of other failures, the latest in a series of Roscosmos directors and industry officials to lose their jobs.  Komarov is the fourth Roscosmos director since NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden was sworn into office in 2009.

The Proton failure is another blow to Russia’s once-solid reputation for reliable launch vehicles, one more in a growing list of failures of several models of Russian rockets since December 2010 that has shaken confidence in the Russian space industry.

The January reorganization put Komarov in charge not only of the Roscosmos space agency, but of the Russian space industry, combining the two jobs into one.  He now must solve three anomalies at once — the April 28 Soyuz 2.1a launch failure that doomed the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft and yesterday’s failures of the Progress M-26M ISS reboost and the Proton-M launch.

Last Updated: May 17, 2015 12:07 pm ET
What's Happening in Space Policy May 18-24, 2015

What's Happening in Space Policy May 18-24, 2015

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 17, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 17, 2015 6:08 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of May 18-24, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The House and Senate will be rushing this week to complete a lot of legislative business before the Memorial Day recess.  The House, in committee and on the floor, will continue work on FY2016 appropriations bills against Democratic objections and a Presidential veto threat because Republicans used a gimmick to add money to the defense budget above the Budget Control Act (BCA) spending caps, but will not add a dime for non-defense spending.  Democrats want to do away with the BCA caps and the associated sequester threat entirely, but the Republicans are doing it only for defense.  Their tactic is to add money to the “Overseas Contingency Operations” (OCO) account that does not count against the caps and change the rules so the money can be spent for routine defense purposes rather than only for executing the war in Afghanistan, for example.  The end result is expected to be another long, drawn out budget process as Democrats and Republican fiscal conservatives (who also object to the OCO tactic, but want to keep the caps) battle in Congress and the President readies his veto pen.

For now, however, the House Appropriations Committee continues marking up FY2016 appropriations bills and sending them to the floor for the whole House to consider.   This week the full committee will mark up the Commerce-Justice-Science bill that includes NASA and NOAA (subcommittee markup was last week), while the defense subcommittee marks up the defense bill.  Both markups are on Wednesday morning; the defense markup is closed.

The House itself will take up two space-related bills that have been approved by the House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee. The Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act (H.R. 1561) has bipartisan support and will be brought up under suspension of the rules on Tuesday.  That means it is expected to easily garner aye votes from at least two-thirds of the Members. The Spurring Private Aerospace Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship Act (SPACE) Act, H.R. 2262 is quite the opposite.   Approved in committee on a strictly party-line basis, it will be considered on the House floor under regular order.  That means it will go first to the House Rules Committee to determine what (if any) amendments will be allowed. The Rules Committee meets on Tuesday afternoon and floor debate is scheduled for Thursday.

The Senate will be busy, too.   On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will mark up the Commercial Space Launch Act (S. 1297) and the Seasonal Forecasting Improvement Act (S. 1331).   S. 1297 and H.R. 2262 have similar goals — to update the existing
Commercial Space Launch Act — but different approaches, and
the Senate bill has bipartisan support.  S. 1331 and H. R. 1561 also have similar goals, but different approaches.  One goal is improving how NOAA acquires satellites and encouraging NOAA to use more commercial weather satellite data. 

Congress has a lot of interest in commercial weather data these days. The House SS&T Environment Subcommittee will hold a hearing specifically on that topic on Wednesday morning.   Ah yes, Wednesday morning.  It will take three of you to cover everything or skilled multitasking to watch the webcasts (just about all congressional hearings and markups are webcast on the respective committee’s website, except for closed meetings to discuss classified matters, of course).  The House hearing is at 10:00, the CJS bill markup up at 10:30, and the Senate markup also is at 10:30.  (The defense appropriations markup is at 9:30 that day, but is closed.)

Not everything happens in Washington, of course.   The National Space Society’s annual International Space Development Conference  (ISDC 2015) will take place in Toronto, Canada, from May 20-24 with a great program of speakers.

Those and other events that we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.

Tuesday, May 19

Wednesday, May 20

Wednesday – Sunday, May 20-24

Thursday, May 21

Last Updated: May 17, 2015 6:08 pm ET
Mexican Telecom Authorities Undeterred Despite MexSat-1 Loss

Mexican Telecom Authorities Undeterred Despite MexSat-1 Loss

By Laura Delgado | Posted: May 16, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: July 27, 2017 11:48 am ET

In a press conference following the failed launch attempt of Mexico’s MexSat-1 on Saturday, leaders of Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT) celebrated the government’s foresight in acquiring comprehensive launch insurance, allowing the government to recover 100 percent of its investment in the development and launch of the satellite.

Boeing-built MexSat-1 (Centenario) was destroyed when a Russian Proton-M rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on May 16, 2015 failed at 497 seconds after launch. International Launch Services (ILS) is the provider for Proton-M launch services.

The second of a planned constellation of three satellites for fixed and mobile communications called the MexSat system, Centenario was designed to meet national security and civil communication needs, including emergency services, tele-education, and tele-medicine. The first satellite in the constellation, MexSat-3 (Bicentenario), was successfully launched in December 2012.  According to an SCT press release, the third satellite, Morelos 3, is slated for an October 22, 2015, launch from Cape Canaveral through a service provided by Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services.

During the press conference Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Secretary of Communications and Transportation, emphasized that the key benefit of having these satellites is not being in the space age, but having the satellite services. For the country to expand in this high-technology area, Mexico will need to learn to live with its inherent risks, he added. SCT’s foresight in fully covering the satellite through private insurance means there is “no loss” for the government of the republic. Ruiz Esparza added that with the upcoming launch of the Morelos 3 satellite, the services that Centenario would have provided are “practically guaranteed.”

Mexico invested an estimated $400 million in Centenario, $90 million of which covered the launch service. Ruiz Esparza was asked to name the amount spent in insurance coverage, a figure he said he did not have on hand and would hesitate to share given the ongoing investigation. In response to a question about the selection of ILS as a launch provider despite the recent issues with the Proton rockets, Ruiz Esparza explained that the service was contracted in February 2012 and that rescinding on that contract would have led to a significant penalty of around $60 million.

A video of the press conference (in Spanish) is available on YouTube.

Editor’s note: English translations provided by Laura Delgado.

Last Updated: Jul 27, 2017 11:48 am ET
Two More Failures in One Day Bedevil Russian Space Program-UPDATED

Two More Failures in One Day Bedevil Russian Space Program-UPDATED

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 16, 2015 12:00 am ET | Last Updated: May 16, 2015 1:51 pm ET

Russia’s space program suffered two more failures in the past day.  First, the engines of a Progress cargo spacecraft attached to the International Space Station (ISS) did not fire when commanded to raise the orbit of the ISS.  Then, the launch of a Proton rocket carrying a Mexican communications satellite failed.  These are on top of the failure of a different Progress cargo ship that made an uncontrolled reentry over the Pacific Ocean last week.

Russia launches four or five Progress cargo spacecraft to the ISS each year.  Progress M-26M is currently attached to the ISS.  These spacecraft deliver food, fuel and other supplies and also are used to periodically raise the space station’s orbit by firing their engines.  It is a routine reboost operation that dozens of Progress spacecraft have executed for space stations beginning with the Soviet Union’s Salyut 6 in the late 1970s and progressing through the Salyut 7, Mir and now ISS programs.  

This time, however, the Progress M-26M engines did not fire upon command.  The engines were supposed to ignite at 4:14 am Moscow Time May 16 (9:14 pm May 15 EDT) and fire for about 15 minutes to raise the ISS orbit by 2.8 kilometers to an altitude of 401.8 kilometers.  The most recent rebsoost was on May 6 and another is planned for June 7.   Russia’s official news agency TASS said later in the day that experts at Russia’s Mission Control Center had identified the problem and another attempt will be made on May 18.  It quoted an unnamed source as saying “I would rather not name the reason” for the failure.

This incident follows the failure of Progress M-27M to reach the ISS.  Russia is still investigating that failure as well.  The problem occurred when Progress M-27M separated from the third stage of its Soyuz 2.1a rocket during launch on April 28, but Russian specialists still do not know why.  The spacecraft made an uncontrolled reentry on May 7 EDT.  Changes were made to the schedule for crew and cargo launches to the ISS while they try to determine the cause.

Now there is a third anomaly to solve.  A Russian Proton-M rocket with a Briz-M upper stage launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 05:47 GMT (1:47 am EDT) this morning to send Mexico’s MexSat-1 (or Centenario) to geostationary orbit.  The Proton’s third stage failed at 497 seconds according to Roscosmos, however.  The third stage, the Briz-M upper stage, and the MexSat-1 satellite all fell to Earth over the Baikal region of Russia.  Most of the debris is presumed to have burned up during the descent from 161 kilometers altitude.  Russian authorities are searching the area, but no fragments have been located.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev immediately directed that a State Commission be established to investigate the accident “and submit proposals on personal and financial responsibility.”

TASS said preliminary indications are that the “steering engines of the third stage” failed.   A Proton failure exactly one year ago doomed Russia’s Ekspress-AM4R communications satellite because of a bad bearing in the turbo pump of a third stage engine.

Proton launches are marketed worldwide by International Launch Services (ILS) based in Reston, VA. Roscosmos fairly quickly posted on its website that “an emergency situation occurred.”  Several hours later ILS acknowledged the
failure and said that it will create its own Failure Review Oversight
Board that will work in parallel with Russia’s State Commission.  Roscosmos said the “satellite and its launch” are insured by the customer, while third party liability is insured by the Russian side.

Russia’s launch vehicles once were considered among the most reliable in the world, but repeated failures since December 2010 have tarnished their reputation. The Russian government has fired people at Roscosmos and in industry and repeatedly reorganized the aerospace sector, most recently combining the government and industry sectors under a single individual, but the failures continue.

Editor’s Note:  This story, originally posted at 9:41 am ET, May 16, 2015, was updated throughout at 1:15 pm with additional information. 

Last Updated: May 16, 2015 1:51 pm ET

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