Here is our list of space policy events for the week of January 25-29, 2016.  The House and Senate are scheduled to be in session, but with the blizzard that’s coming, all events in the DC area should be considered tentative. [UPDATE JANUARY 24: The House has decided not to meet this week because of the aftereffects of the blizzard.  So far, the Senate’s schedule is unchanged.  The immediate Washington DC area got between 17 and 30 inches of snow and roads remain impassable in many places.  Also, Federal Government offices in the DC area will be closed on Monday.  UPDATE JANUARY 25:  The January 26 SASC defense acquisition hearing has been postponed.  Federal Government offices in the DC area will be closed on Tuesday, too.]

During the Week

The first flakes of the Blizzard of 2016, also known as Snowmageddon II, Snowzilla, or Jonas (that’s what The Weather Channel calls it), are falling.   The forecast is so grim that we worry whether the electricity will be on this weekend, so decided to post this today (Friday).   The Washington DC area does not do well with snow and even if it did, this storm is expected to break records in snowfall totals (18-30 inches is forecast for right here) and winds (30-40 miles per hour in this area, higher elsewhere), so any city would have a problem keeping up with it.   If you have plans to travel to the DC area, or the mid-Atlantic generally, check to be sure your meeting or whatever is still taking place before you start your trip. [UPDATED JANUARY 25:  The House will not meet this week.  The SASC hearing on defense acquisition on Tuesday has been postponed (not the RD-180 hearing on Wednesday, at least not yet).  Federal government offices in the DC area are closed Monday and Tuesday.]

Among the highlights of events that are SCHEDULED as of this moment is NASA’s annual remembrance of the astronauts who lost their lives in the 1967 Apollo fire and 1986 space shuttle Challenger and 2003 Columbia tragedies.   This year is the 30th anniversary of the January 28, 1986 Challenger accident that killed NASA astronauts Dick Scobee, Mike Smith, Judy Resnik, Ellison Onizuka and Ron McNair; Hughes Aircraft payload specialist Greg Jarvis; and Teacher in Space Christa McAuliffe.  NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and other NASA officials will take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on January 28 (Thursday), followed by activities at other NASA centers throughout the day.  NASA TV will televise a wreath-laying ceremony at the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Center at 10:00 am ET.

On a completely different note, the debate over United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines and efforts to build a U.S. alternative to them resumes on Wednesday with a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC).  SASC Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) is livid that Senate appropriators pulled the rug out from under his feet, essentially allowing the use of an indeterminate number of RD-180s instead of capping the number at nine as required by the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) reportedly at the urging of the Air Force and ULA.   Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and DOD Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall will be at the witness table to explain their position.  The argument is not over the need to end reliance on Russian engines for national security launches or to build a U.S. alternative, but the timing.  ULA and the Air Force do not think a new U.S.-built engine will be ready for service by 2019; McCain thinks that is a reasonable goal.  McCain also is an advocate for SpaceX and other “new entrants” who could compete against ULA and bring launch costs down.  

Note that there is a more general hearing on defense acquisition the day before.  [UPDATE:  THIS HEARING HAS BEEN POSTPONED] At that one, the service chiefs will testify about the role they play in the
acquisition process.  Impossible to know if anything will come up about
space, but it wouldn’t be surprising.  SASC’s House counterpart, HASC,
held its own defense acquisition hearing on January 7.  HASC Strategic
Forces Subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) used it as a opportunity to
slam DOD on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).  DOD
bought 20 DMSP weather satellites almost two decades ago.  The first 19
have been launched, but the fate of the last one, DMSP-20, is in limbo. 
In 2014, DOD said it no longer was needed, but changed its mind last year.  Congress reacted
skeptically and required DOD to certify whether it is needed or not.  Meanwhile,
millions of dollars have been spent keeping it in storage.   Rogers used
$518 million as the total amount of money spent on that one satellite and said
a lot of aggravation could have been saved if 18 years ago the Air Force and
Congress “put a half billion dollars in a parking lot in a pile and just
burned it.”  He said now the satellite will be trashed and “I
presume … be made into razor blades.”  We’ll see if the SASC
hearing has any of its own fireworks.

Those and other events that are scheduled for next week are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additional events that we learn about and add to our Events of Interest list.   And to all of our readers in the mid-Atlantic area about to endure this storm, pay heed to the experts on how to stay safe.

Tuesday, January 26

• SASC Hearing on Defense Acquisition, G-50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET  (POSTPONED)

Wednesday, January 27

• SASC Hearing on Russian RD-180 Rocket Engines, 216 Hart Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET
• COMSTAC Telecon re Indian Launch Vehicles, virtual, 3:00-4:00 pm ET

Wednesday-Friday, January 27-29

• NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), Monrovia, CA

Thursday, January 28

• NASA Commemoration of its “Fallen Heroes” – 30th Anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger Tragedy, various locations and times
• NOAA Science Advisory Board, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD, 1:00-4:00 pm ET

Thursday-Friday, January 28-29

• NASA-NSF-DOE Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA

Friday, January 29

• Space Power to the Warfighter: Space Policy and Strategy (Mitchell Institute), Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC, 8:00 am ET

Here is our list of space policy related events for January 17-22, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.   The Senate is in session part of the week; the House is in recess.

During the Week

Tomorrow (Monday) is a Federal holiday — Martin Luther King’s birthday — and federal offices will be closed.  The House is taking the entire week off, but the Senate will be in session beginning Tuesday.

The big news for this week has already happened:  today’s successful launch of the NOAA-Eumetsat-NASA-CNES Jason-3 ocean altimetry spacecraft.  Despite the fog, the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA went off on time at 1:42 pm Eastern Time (10:42 am local time at the launch site) and as of this moment, the satellite is in the correct orbit and the solar arrays have deployed.  The Falcon 9 launch was flawless, but SpaceX’s attempt to land the first stage on one of its autonomous drone ships about 200 miles off the California coast failed.  SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted that one of the landing legs did not lock into place so the rocket tipped over when landing on the drone ship.

The successful launch of Jason-3 will provide a nice backdrop for Wednesday’s NASA-NOAA media telecon on weather and climate, although the telecon’s focus is what happened last year.  The telecon will be broadcast on NASA’s News Audio website at 11:00 am ET.   An hour later, NOAA’s Chief Scientist, Rick Spinrad, will have a chance to tout the success at a Maryland Space Business Roundtable luncheon.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.  Check back throughout the week to see any additional events we learn about later and post on our Events of Interest list. 

Sunday-Wednesday, January 17-20

• Pacific Telecon Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii

Wednesday, January 20

• NASA-NOAA Telecon on climate and weather, virtual, 11:00 am ET (listen on NASA’s News Audio website)
• MSBR Luncheon Featuring NOAA Chief Scientist Rick Spinrad, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Thursday, January 21

• Tale of Two (Cities) Planets: What Earth and Mars Are Teaching Us About the Evolution of Habitable Worlds (Carnegie Institution), 1530 P Street, NW, Washington, DC, 6:45 pm ET

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of January 10-15, 2016.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

President Obama’s final State of the Union Address will take place on Tuesday night at 9:00 pm Eastern.   No idea whether space will be mentioned, though Obama has done so in the past,  Last year astronaut Scott Kelly was in attendance just prior to launching to ISS on his “year in space” mission and got a shout-out from the President along with NASA and NOAA climate scientists.

Also in the political realm, another Republican presidential primary debate is on tap this week, on Thursday in North Charleston, South Carolina.   The national media who run these debates have not asked questions about the space program so far, although the topic has arisen during campaign events for some of the candidates, notably in New Hampshire (most recently for Jeb Bush).   With the 30th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger tragedy coming up in less than three weeks (on January 28), it is possible the national media could use it as an opportunity to query the candidates about their positions on space exploration.  Not to mention the next Democratic debate on January 17 in Charleston, SC.  Or the subsequent Republican debate on January 28 itself in Iowa.

Apart from that, a number of interesting meetings are scheduled this week, including the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS).   Unfortunately the sessions will not be livestreamed.   A panel discussion of particular note to readers of this website will take place on Wednesday concerning “The Weather Value Chain of the Future” that will discuss “innovative data sources” — commercial and crowdsourced data including commercial weather satellites.   Rob Kursinski of PlanetIQ will be there and the company’s Dan Stillman tells SpacePolicyOnline.com that a video of the panel will be posted “in the days after.”   Other panelists are from IBM, Weathernews, Panasonic, Weather Analytics, and Ignatia.  AMS past president and the Weather Channel’s WeatherGeeks host Marshall Shepard is the moderator.

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

Sunday-Thursday, January 10-14

• American Meteorological Society (AMS) annual conference, New Orleans, LA

Monday-Wednesday, January 11-13

• National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS) Committee on NASA Technology Roadmaps, Beckman Center, Irvine, CA (open sessions on Monday only)
• NAS Committee  on Astrophysics Decadal Survey Progress, Keck Center, 500 Fifth St., NW, Washington, DC (open sessions on Monday and Tuesday)

Tuesday, January 12

• WSBR Luncheon Featuring Aerojet Rocketdyne President Eileen Drake, University Club, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• NASA News Conference on Upcoming Spacewalk, Johnson Space Center, 2:00 pm ET (watch on NASA TV)
• MIT Washington Seminar Series (4th Seminar), Maggiano’s Little Italy, Washington, DC
• President Obama’s State of the Union address, The Capitol, Washington, DC, 9:00 pm ET

Thursday, January 14

• Republican Presidential Primary Debate, Fox Business Network, 6:00 pm ET (“undercard”), 9:00 pm EST (main group)

Friday, January 15

• ESA Director General Annual Briefing, ESA HQ, Paris, France, 09:00 Central European Time (3:00 am Eastern Standard Time), followed at 11:30 CET (5:30 am EST) by briefing on European Data Relay System (webcast)
• Jason-3 Pre-Launch Briefings, Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA, 1:00 pm and 1:45 pm Pacific Standard Time (4:00 pm and 4:45 pm EST) (watch on NASA TV)

Editor’s Note:  I received word today that two highly respected colleagues at Space News are leaving that publication.

An email from Space News Publisher Bill Klanke last month announced that the “must read” newspaper/website for anyone who wants to know what’s happening in the space business (apart from SpacePolicyOnline.com, of course!) was changing from a weekly newspaper to bi-weekly magazine format.   The difficulties facing news publications in today’s digital/social media age are well documented and that alone was not much of a surprise.   But farewell messages today from Executive Editor Warren Ferster, a 21-year Space News veteran, and reporter Dan Leone, who covered the NASA beat, were stunning.

I wish Warren and Dan the very best wherever they land and one can only hope no more shoes are about to drop over there.  I have enormous respect for everyone associated with Space News and any downsizing in its coverage would be a loss to all of us in the space community.

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of January 3-8, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The 114th Congress 2nd session convenes this week and the House meets for legislative business (the Senate returns to work next week).

During the Week

Washington gets back to work this week with the President returning from his Christmas vacation in Hawaii and the House and Senate officially convening for the 2nd session of the 114th Congress tomorrow (Monday).  The “official” convening is only in pro forma session, though.  The real work begins for the House on Tuesday and for the Senate on January 11.  No space-related hearings are on the committee schedules posted as of now.

Outside of Washington, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) annual meeting in Kissimmee, FL and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech 2016 conference in San Diego promise to be full of interesting sessions on space science, engineering and policy.   The AAS offers real-time webcasts only of press conferences and those are only for registered journalists, so the Town Hall meetings with NASA and NSF, for example, will not be available remotely from AAS at least.  If we hear of any other organization providing livestreaming, we’ll post it on our Events of Interest list.

AIAA, on the other hand, generously offers livestreaming for many of its key sessions, including one tomorrow (Monday) that features former NASA Administrator Dan Goldin along with a stellar panel of other government, former government, and non-government experts.  The topic is “Aerospace Science and Technology Policy in the 2016 Political Arena” and two of the other panelists — Courtney Stadd and Mark Albrecht — are veterans of the White House National Space Council during the Bush/Quayle years (among their many other government and non-government positions).   It wouldn’t be surprising if someone asks the perennial question of whether whoever becomes the next president should reinstate the Space Council, which still exists in law, but has not been staffed or funded since the end of the Bush/Quayle term.

Remember that all the times posted on the AIAA livestream list are in Pacific Standard Time (PST).  Add three for Eastern Standard Time (EST).  That panel is at 8:00 am PST/11:00 am EST. 

Two other especially interesting sessions tomorrow are the Durand Lecture for Public Service by Ron Sega at 12:30 pm PST/3:30 pm EST and a panel moderated by Michael Moloney of the Space Studies Board and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine. (What a mouthful!  It sure was easier when we could say National Research Council.)  That panel is on “Research Enabling and Enabled by a Cis-Lunar One-Year Mission” and begins at 2:00 pm PST/5:00 pm EST.  Several other interesting lectures and sessions also will be webcast throughout the week.

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

Sunday-Monday, January 3-4

• ExoPAG, Kissimmee, FL (in conjunction with the AAS meeting)

Monday-Friday, January 4-8

• American Astronomical Society annual meeting, Kissimmee, FL, includes meetings of NASA’s three astrophysics Program Analysis Groups (PAGs) – ExoPAG, COPAG, PhysPAG
• AIAA SciTech 2016, San Diego, CA (key sessions will be livestreamed)

Tuesday, January 5

• First legislative business day for the House of Representatives, 114th Congress, 2nd session

Thursday, January 7

• NASA News Conference with Upcoming ISS Crew, Johnson Space Center, TX, 2:00 pm EST (1:00 pm Central) (watch on NASA TV)

Here is our list of space policy events for the next TWO weeks as we transition from one year to the next:  December 28, 2015 – January 8, 2016.   The 114th Congress officially begins its second session next week and the House will meet for legislative business, but the Senate is not scheduled to be back until January 11.

During the Weeks

We all have one more week to relax and get to the bottom of the piles of stuff on our desks before 2016 starts off with fervor.  As usual, two big annual meetings are on tap for the first week of January that promise to be full of news about space science and engineering — the American Astronomical Society’s meeting in Kissimmee, FL and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) SciTech 2016 conference in San Diego.  Most of these big conferences offer key sessions via webcast either in real time or for later viewing.  Check their websites for details.

The 2nd session of the 114th Congress officially begins on January 4, though the House and Senate meet only in pro forma sessions that day.  The first legislative business day for the House is January 5.  House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has not yet posted the House schedule for January 5-8. The Senate goes back to work on January 11 (and the State of the Union address is on January 12). 

It being a presidential election year, the House and Senate will meet for fewer days than usual in 2016 and the schedule is front-end loaded.  They will be busy through early July, but then have an extended summer break — from July 18 to September 6 — because the party conventions to select their presidential tickets are the last two weeks of July (Republicans in Cleveland the week of July 18; Democrats in Philadelphia the following week).   Both return for most of September — when they will have to do something about FY2017 appropriations before the end of the fiscal year on September 30 — and the House will recess for the entire month of October to allow members to focus on reelection campaigns.  The Senate currently plans to meet the first week of October only.  They both return briefly in mid-November after the elections and for part of December.   What all that means is the lion’s share of congressional action will be in the first six months of the year.  In total, the House is scheduled to be in session for just 111 days in 2016, the fewest since 2006 according to the AP. The Senate plans to be in session for 149 days.

Following are the events for the next two weeks that we know about as of Sunday morning, December 27.  Check back throughout the weeks for anything we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list on our main page.

In the meantime, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January 4-8, 2016

• American Astronomical Society annual meeting, Kissimmee, FL
• AIAA Sci-Tech 2016 conference, San Diego, CA

January 5

• First legislative workday for the House for the 2nd session of the 114th Congress, U.S. Capitol, Washington, DC

The House and Senate passed the final version of the FY2016 appropriations bill today and it was quickly signed into law by President Obama.  Government agencies are now funded through the end of FY2016 — September 30, 2016.

The final bill, H.R. 2029, brought mostly good news to government civilian space programs at NASA, NOAA and the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).

NASA gets a $756 million boost above the President’s request, which itself was a $519 million increase over the agency’s FY2015 funding.  Its top-line funding for FY2016 is $19.285 billion compared to $18.010 billion in FY2015.  Details are in our NASA budget fact sheet.  In a big win for the Obama Administration, Congress provided the full $1.244 billion requested for the commercial crew program.   At the same time, it added significant funds for the Space Launch System and a robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, two congressional priorities.

NOAA’s satellite programs were fully funded with two small exceptions ($10 million requested for an Earth Observing Nanosatellite-Microwave program was denied, and $1.2 million was provided instead of $2.5 million for beginning to plan for a space weather satellite follow-on to DSCOVR).  But the GOES-R and JPSS weather satellite programs are fully funded, along with the Polar Follow On (PFO) program for two more JPSS spacecraft (JPSS-3 and -4).  Getting full funding for PFO is a big win for the Obama Administration; Congress was lukewarm, at best, about it.  Congress also created a Commercial Weather Data Pilot program, one of its priorities, and funded it at $3 million for FY2016. Details are in our NOAA budget fact sheet.

FAA/AST did not get the full $1.5 million increase it requested, but it got more than the House-passed or Senate Appropriations Committee-recommended levels.  It will get $17.8 million for FY2016, compared to $16.605 million in FY2015, an increase of $1.2 million. 

Perhaps the most controversial issue in the DOD space program was not funding, but the policy issue of how many Russian RD-180 engines may by obtained by the United Launch Alliance for its Atlas V rocket.  The Atlas V is used to launch national security satellites and the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act  (NDAA) sharply limits the number of Russian engines that ULA may use because its focus is building an American-made alternative.  The appropriations bill, however, essentially lifts those limits.  Senator John McCain (R-AZ), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the architect of the RD-180 limits, lambasted his appropriations colleagues for undermining the provisions of the NDAA.