The House and Senate quickly passed another short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) today to keep the government operating until Tuesday, December 22.   The goal is to pass the full-year omnibus appropriations that negotiators agreed upon overnight before the new deadline passes.  [UPDATE: The President signed the CR on December 16, P.L. 114-100.]

As reported in four SpacePolicyOnline.com articles today, negotiators agreed on a bill that combines all 12 regular FY2016 appropriations bills into a single “omnibus” bill to fund the government through September 30, 2016. 

• NASA Gets Big Boost in Final FY2016 Appropriations
• NOAA’s Polar Follow On Gets Full Funding in Final FY2016 Appropriations Bill
• FAA’s Space Office Gets Partial Increase While COMSTAC Recommends Increased Scope
• McCain Lambasts Senate Appropriators for RD-180 Provision

The omnibus bill, H.R. 2029, still must pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the President.  The $1.149 trillion funding bill meets the requirements of the budget/debt limit deal reached by Congress and the White House at the end of October, but remains controversial.  As House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said, “in divided government, no one gets exactly what they want.”  Republican and Democratic leaders apparently believe they have enough votes to get the measure passed, however.

The CR currently keeping the government operating expires today, necessitating another short-term CR until the omnibus becomes law.

Here’s our list of upcoming space policy events (updated December 14 to add a link to the list of AGU sessions that will be livestreamed).  This version covers the three weeks between now and the end of the year as the number of events dwindles and thoughts turn to holidays and fresh beginnings.  The House and Senate will meet this week at least.  If they fail to reach agreement on an FY2016 appropriations bill, they might be back next week.

During the Weeks

In Washington, everyone is awaiting congressional agreement on a full-year omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the government through the end of FY2016 (September 30, 2016).   Congress extended the existing Continuing Resolution (CR) now funding the government from December 11 to December 16 in the hope that the extra 5 days is enough for negotiators to reach a compromise on what policy provisions (riders) are included.   The goal is for the bill to be introduced tomorrow (Monday) and voted on three days later (Wednesday), giving House members three days to read the bill.  The House has a rule that three days notice is required, but it is often bypassed.  New House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) wants the House to return to “regular order” — following the rules — so if the bill is not introduced tomorrow, the date for a vote could slip.   Congress may, in fact, keep extending the CR for short or long periods of time.   As members of the appropriations committees point out, it is a wasteful and inefficient way to run a government (not only can new programs not begin, but existing programs cannot be terminated under a CR), so many are motivated to reach an agreement.  We’ll see what happens.

Meanwhile, the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference is taking place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco this week.   It is always a great venue for breaking news in the earth and planetary science fields and features top level industry, academic and government leaders.  For example,  Elon Musk is scheduled to be there on Tuesday morning (10:10-11:00 am Pacific Time).   Al Gore was just added to the program for a Town Hall meeting on Wednesday at 12:30 pm Pacific Time on “The Earth from a Million Miles: Advancing Earth Observations from L1.”  Gore was the initiator of what is now known as the DSCOVR program (originally called Triana), which was finally launched in February after years in political purgatory.  It is now at Sun-Earth L1 sending back scientific data and the daily views of Earth that Gore sought.  UPDATE:  Many of the AGU general sessions, Town Halls, and press conferences will be livestreamed and/or archived on the AGU YouTube channel.  A list is posted on the conference website with links.  Note that all times are Pacific Standard Time (add three for Eastern).

Musk has quite a schedule this week.  He’ll be at AGU on Tuesday and on Wednesday SpaceX will hold a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket that will be used to launch 11 ORBCOMM OG-2 satellites “about three days later” if all goes well.   This will be the first Falcon 9 launch since the June 28, 2015 failure and the beginning of a series of four missions the company plans to launch in the next two months.

The last of those four will be the next SpaceX cargo launch to the ISS, SpaceX-8 (SpX-8).  NASA will say only that its internal plans call for a launch in “February.”   There will be six ISS crew members awaiting those supplies.  Three just returned on Friday and three more will launch on Tuesday, restoring the facility to its typical crew complement of six.

So this will be a very busy week, but if Congress gets the appropriations bill done, a two-week respite should follow. 

Here are all the events we know about as of Sunday morning.  Check back during the week for anything added to our Events of Interest list as the days progress.

Monday, December 14

• NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), telecon, 3:30-3:45 pm ET

Monday-Friday, December 14-18

• American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting, Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA,  Many of the sessions will be livestreamed.

Tuesday, December 15

• Soyuz TMA-19M Launch and Docking of Three ISS Crew Members.
  • LAUNCH:  Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, 6:03 am ET (5:03 pm local time at the launch site)
  • DOCKING at ISS: 12:24 pm ET
• WSBR Luncheon Panel on DOD and Commercial SATCOM, University Club, 1135 16th St., NW, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Tuesday-Wednesday, December 15-16

• International Synmposium on the Moon 2020-2030 (ESA), ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Wednesday-Friday, December 16-18

• 11th Annual DOD Commercial SATCOM Conference (SIA), Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA

Saturday, December 19

• TENTATIVE date for Falcon 9 Return to Flight with ORBCOMM OG-2 satellites, Cape Canaveral, FL, 8:00-9:00 pm ET

Congress passed a 5-day extension to the deadline for funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year today.  The bill, H.R. 2250, passed the House by voice vote.  The Senate passed it yesterday.

The bill in its current from is short and to the point, simply replacing the date of December 11 with December 16 in the previously-enacted FY2016 Continuing Resolution (CR). H.R. 2250 is being used as the legislative vehicle for the CR-extension.  As introduced, it was on an unrelated topic, but was in a useful stage of the legislative process to move  forward quickly.  The Senate struck all the language in the original bill and replaced it with the extension to December 16.

House and Senate Republicans and Democrats continue to negotiate over a wide range of controversial policy provisions — riders — that have held up final agreement on the funding bill.   It is anticipated that they will reach agreement on a single bill that consolidates all 12 regular appropriations bills — an “omnibus” appropriations — to fund the government through September 30, 2016, but that is not a foregone conclusion.  They could simply pass another short term extension.

But the good news is that today, at least, there will not be a government shutdown for lack of funds.  The President still needs to sign the legislation; that should take place in the next several hours.

House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) today introduced a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government operating for 5 more days past the Friday deadline when the current CR expires.  The hope is that work can be completed on a bill that will fund it for the rest of FY2016 by early next week.

FY2016 began on October 1 and Congress should have passed 12 regular appropriations bills by then to pay for defense and non-defense discretionary federal government activities including DOD, NASA and NOAA.  None of those bills cleared Congress and a CR was enacted instead to keep agencies operating at FY2015 levels until agreement could be reached.  That CR expires on Friday, December 11.

A budget deal reached at the end of October between the White House and Congress cleared the way for agreement on spending levels, but policy provisions — “riders” — continue to hold up final action.   It is expected that all 12 bills will be combined into a single consolidated or “omnibus” appropriations bill that provides funding through the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2016.

The decision to introduce another short-term CR can be viewed as good news in the sense that it indicates all sides may be close to an agreement if given just a few more days, though critics would argue that sufficient time has passed that they should have been able to get the job done by Friday.

The bill, H.J. Res. 75, would fund government operations at their current level though Wednesday, December 16.  Rogers said in a statement that it is his “hope and expectation that a final, full-year bill will be enacted before this new deadline.”

Here is our list of space policy related events for the coming week — and weekend, since there’s an interesting symposium on Saturday — of December 7-13, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week. (Updated to remove reference to OA-4 launch, which went off successfully today, and to add agenda for Wednesday’s Galloway symposium, which is now available.)

During the Week

It’s Groundhog Week!!  Once again Congress must past a budget by the end of the week or the government will face a shut down.  The Continuing Resolution (CR) currently funding the government expires on December 11.  Once again pundits are split as to whether Congress will be able to pull it off or not.  Once again it is less a matter of budget issues than policy riders that various groups want to attach to the funding bill — from preventing Syrian refugees from resettling in the United States to repealing portions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act to blocking EPA regulations for clean power and clean water.   Congressional Republicans focused their attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and defund Planned Parenthood in a separate bill that cleared the Senate last week.  Although they know the President will veto it, they succeeded in forcing Senators to go on record with their votes, so perhaps they will not raise these issues again so soon during this week’s appropriations debate.  SpacePolicyOnline.com knows too well the folly of trying to anticipate what Congress will do, but will take a risk and lay odds that something will pass by Friday and the government will not shut down.  Whether it’s a full-year omnibus appropriations bill or another short-term CR — well, we’re not going to venture a guess on THAT.

Apart from that, there’s a bumper crop of really interesting events on tap this week. Only three will be highlighted here in order to keep this relatively brief.

First is the 10th Eilene M. Galloway Symposium on Critical Issues in Space Law on Wednesday at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC.  As one can see from the agenda, it looks terrific (OK, your faithful SpacePolicyOnline.com editor is on the program, but it’s terrific because of all the OTHER people who will be speaking).  The theme is looking back over what’s happened in the past 10 years in space law and space policy — because it’s the 10th Galloway symposium — and looking forward to what comes next.

Second is a seminar sponsored by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation on “Asia’s Space Race and the US-Japan Alliance” on Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill at the Capitol Visitors Center.  Mike Mansfield (1903-2001) was a highly respected Senator (1953-1977) who later was U.S. Ambassador to Japan. The seminar has a great line-up of speakers from the U.S. and Japan, including The Honorable Takeo Kawamura, Member of Japan’s Diet.  The U.S. speakers include Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), chairman of the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee; Chirag Parikh, Director of Space Policy at the White House National Security Council; and Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

Third (and really, it was tough to pick just three, so see the complete list) is a symposium on progress made in astrophysics since the last astrophysics Decadal Survey (DS) was published.  It will be held at the National Academy of Sciences Beckman Center in Irvine, CA, but will be webcast for those elsewhere in the country.  The symposium is all-day Saturday (Pacific Time, so roughly noon-9 pm Eastern), followed by a two-day meeting of the NAS committee created to review how the astrophysics field has progressed since the New Worlds, New Horizons report came out.  The committee meeting is open to the public on Sunday, but closed on Monday.  No indication if the Sunday meeting will be available by WebEx or other electronic means, but the Academy is doing that more often these days.  If we learn about a way to listen in remotely, we’ll add the information to our Events of Interest list.  NAS Decadal Surveys are conducted about every 10 years (hence “decadal”) to lay out scientific priorities in various scientific disciplines and recommend programs to answer key scientific questions within budget envelopes provided by the relevant agenc(ies) — in this case, NASA, NSF and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.  In 2005, Congress mandated that “performance assessments” be conducted by the NAS half-way through each decadal period to see how things are working out.  This is part of that process.  For a list of all the current space and earth science Decadal Surveys and the last round of performance assessments, see our webpage.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to our Events of Interest list that we learn about as time goes by.

Monday, December 7

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Heliophysics Subcommittee, virtual, 3:00-4:30 pm ET

Tuesday, December 8

• MIT Washington Seminar Series Session 3, Maggiano’s Little Italy, Washington, DC

Tuesday-Wednesday, December 8-9

• NAC Planetary Protection Subcommittee, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
• Space Resiliency Summit, Mary M. Gates Learning Center, Alexandria, VA (press not allowed)

Wednesday, December 9

• 10th Eilene M. Galloway Symposium on Critical Issues in Space Law, Cosmos Club, 2121 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm ET
• Enhancing EU-U.S. Cooperation in Space (CSIS), 1616 Rhode Island Ave,, NW, Washington, DC, 2:00-5:00 pm ET

Thursday, December 10

• House SS&T Subcommittee Hearing on NOAA’s Weather Satellites, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
• Asia’s Space Race and the US-Japan Alliance (Mansfield Foundation), Capitol Visitors Center SVC 203-02, 2:00-5:30 pm ET
• COMSTAC telecon, virtual, 3:00-4:30 pm ET

Friday, December 11

•  Soyuz TMA-17M Landing of Three ISS Crew Members, Kazakhstan (undocking from ISS, 4:47 am ET; deorbit burn 7:17 am ET; landing 8:12 am ET), watch on NASA TV
• American Astronautical Society Young Professionals Happy Hour, Thomas Foolery, 2029 P St., NW, Washington, DC, 5:00-7:00 pm ET (RSVP by December 9)

 Saturday-Sunday, December 12-13

• NAS Cmte on Astrophysics Decadal Survey Progress Symposium and Meeting, NAS Beckman Center, Irvine, CA (symposium on Dec 12 is 9:15 am – 6:00 pm Pacific Time/12:15-9:00 pm Eastern and will be webcast; committee meeting on Dec 13 is open to the public, but seating is limited)2

President Obama signed legislation yesterday (December 3) that reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank.  The Bank has not been able to issue new loans to foreign customers seeking to buy U.S. goods since Congress allowed its authorization to lapse at the end of June.

Created in 1934, the Bank helps provide
financing for U.S. exports, including those in the aerospace sector such as communications satellites.  The Bank needs to be periodically reauthorized, a step
taken with little notice until recently when it became a major source of contention in Congress.  Some conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats oppose the Bank on
the grounds that it is a government subsidy — corporate welfare for a
few big companies like Boeing and General Electric — while others hail
the Bank as an important jobs creator by facilitating U.S. exports.

Advocates finally won the day by using a rare parliamentary procedure — a discharge petition — to move the issue from the House Financial Services Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), strongly opposed it, to the floor of the House where all Members could debate and vote on it.  The Bank won reauthorization in that vote, paving the way for final resolution, although it was wrapped into the surface transportation bill (H.R. 22) rather than passing as a standalone piece of legislation.

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) and the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) have been among the strongest supporters of the bill.  In a statement, AIA said it was “relieved and delighted” that Congress approved a 4-year reauthorization of the Bank.  It pointed out “one last item” that remains, however: additional members of the Board of Directors must be appointed for the Bank to approve loans above $10 million.  Board Directors are appointed by the President and must be confirmed by the Senate.  “We urge President Obama and Senate leadership to nominate and confirm new Members to the Ex-Im Board expeditiously,” AIA said.

EXIM Bank Chairman Eric Hochberg said in a statement yesterday that the Bank is now “ready to receive applications for new transactions,” but asked for patience as it gets its processes back up and running.  He also noted that transactions over $10 million must wait until a quorum of Board members is reestablished.  He and Wanda Felton, Vice Chair, are the only members of the five-member Board at the moment.

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of November 30-December 4, 2015 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Congress returns to work tomorrow (Monday) after a week off for Thanksgiving.   They have this week and next to reach agreement on a funding bill for the government.  The current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires on December 11.   Optimism abounds that all sides can work out their differences on funding issues, but policy riders are something else entirely.   Several issues could derail an agreement — from resettlement plans for Syrian refugees to funding for Planned Parenthood.  Stay tuned.

The conference report on the surface transportation bill, H.R. 22, which includes reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, could come up this week. Reopening the Bank has most recently become enmeshed in Middle East politics according to Politico. The prevailing wisdom is that the Bank will be reauthorized even if Congress does include language requiring the Bank to consider whether a loan applicant opposes new European Union labeling requirements for goods made in what the EU considers to be Israeli-occupied territories like the West Bank.

Down at Cape Canaveral, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket is scheduled to launch an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday.  This is the first flight of a Cygnus, and an upgraded version at that, since the Antares launch failure in October 2014.   That launch was by Orbital Sciences Corporation and designated Orb-3.  Orbital merged with ATK in February and this one is OA-4.  The company names its spacecraft after prominent individuals.  Orb-3 was the S.S. Deke Slayton after the late NASA astronaut and space launch entrepreneur (one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, he did not get his chance to fly until 1975 because of a health issue and later founded Space Services Inc., which built the Conestoga rocket).  This one also is named after him — the S.S. Deke Slayton II.  (S.S. is for spaceship).  Orbital ATK is still working on returning Antares to flight, outfitted with different Russian engines (RD-181s instead of NK-33/AJ26s).  There will be one more Atlas V/Cygnus launch in the spring, and then an Antares/Cygnus launch from Wallops Island, VA in the May time frame.

Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James will speak at the National Press Club on Wednesday.   No way to know in advance how much she will address space activities, but with all the tumult on Capitol Hill about Russian RD-180s for ULA’s Atlas V, it would be surprising if no one at least asked a question about it.  The Air Force and powerful members of the Senate Appropriations Committees, including Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), want ULA to be able to obtain more RD-180s for national security launches than are permitted under the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act that President Obama signed into law a couple of days ago.  That language was championed by Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) chairman John McCain (R-AZ) who wants to limit how much money the United States pays Russian President Vladimir Putin and his “cronies” and move forward expeditiously with building an American replacement for the RD-180 by 2019.  The Air Force and Shelby et al are convinced that more time is needed for that transition to occur and thus more RD-180s are required (ULA builds its rockets in Alabama, Shelby’s state). Strictly speaking, it is authorization bills that are supposed to set policy.  Legislating in an appropriations bill is not permitted, but that prohibition is rarely enforced.  A point of order can be raised against a bill that transgresses the official boundaries, but it is all very complicated politically. 

(Why, you may ask, is it all right for Orbital ATK to use Russian RD-181 engines for Antares when ULA is limited in how many Russian RD-180s it can use on Atlas V?   Because the limitation is on using Russian engines for national security launches.  Orbital ATK is not offering Antares for national security launches, just civil and commercial.)

RD-180 and other space issues could also come up as a SASC hearing on Tuesday where aerospace industry icon and former Lockheed Martin executive Norm Augustine will testify on the perennial issue of defense acquisition reform.

The NASA Advisory Council meets over three days (Tuesday-Thursday) at Johnson Space Center, TX.  NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden is scheduled to speak on Tuesday afternoon from 1:30-2:30 pm Central Time (2:30-3:30 pm Eastern) followed by Bill Gerstenmaier and Sam Scimemi on human spaceflight.  The public may listen in on the meeting via WebEx and telecon.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to our Events of Interest that we learn about as the week progresses.

Monday, November 30

• NASA Media Event on Arrival of Test Version of ESA’s Orion Service Module at Plum Brook Facility, press briefing 12:30 pm ET (watch on NASA TV)

Tuesday, December 1

• Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) Event on UK Human Spaceflight Strategy, RAeS headquarters, London, England, 09:00-17:00 local time
• SASC Hearing on Acquisition Reform, G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET
• House Aerospace Caucus Briefing on Observing Earth from Space, 2253 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:00-11:00 am ET
• Space Policy & History Forum Featuring NASA’s Michael Meyer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD, 4:00-5:00 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, December 1-3

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC), Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX

Wednesday, December 2

• NASA Exhibit on ISS Research on Capitol Hill with live downlink from ISS, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, 9:30 am ET (ISS downlink at 10:00 am ET)
• SecAF Deborah Lee James Speaks at National Press Club, Washington, DC, 12:30 pm ET (remarks begin at 1:00 pm ET)

Thursday, December 3

• Orbital ATK/United Launch Alliance Cygnus/Atlas V launch to ISS, 30 minute launch window opens at 5:48 pm ET per AF 45th Space Wing (5:55 pm ET according to other sources)

Friday, December 4

• Dupont Summit on Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Historic Wittemore House, Washington, DC, 9:00 am – 4:20 pm ET

Here is our list of upcoming space policy events.  This edition covers two weeks instead of one since the coming week includes the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and not much is scheduled.   The House and Senate are in recess for the holiday week.  The Senate returns on November 30; the House on December 1.

During the Weeks

As of Sunday morning, we are not aware of any space policy events on tap for Thanksgiving week, but President Obama has two space-related bills on his desk that could be signed into law once he returns to the States:  the FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act.

The following week, Congress gets back to work on, among other things, finalizing a FY2016 budget.  The Continuing Resolution (CR) currently funding the government expires on December 11.   Despite the budget deal agreed to earlier this month, there are enough controversial policy issues at stake that laying odds on getting full-year appropriations passed by then remains risky.

Apart from that, the NASA Advisory Council meets at Johnson Space Center on December 1-3, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James will speak at the National Press Club on December 2, and Orbital ATK will return its Cygnus capsule (though not its Antares rocket) to flight on December 3.  Cygnus will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V from Cape Canaveral, FL.  Orbital ATK hopes to resume Antares launches from Wallops Island, VA in May 2016.

Also on December 1, NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Scientist, Michael Meyer, will give an update on NASA’s Mars program at the next Space Policy & History Forum.  This one is being held at the Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Laurel, MD, rather than at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in D.C.   APL and NASM co-sponsor this quarterly lecture series. 

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.   Check back to see any additions to our Events of Interest list that we learn about later.

Thursday, November 26

• HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF OUR U.S. READERS

Tuesday, December 1

• RAeS Event on UK Human Spaceflight Strategy, RAeS Headquarters, London, England, 09:00-17:00 local time
• Space Policy & History Forum Featuring NASA’s Michael Meyer, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD, 4:00-5:00 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, December 1-3

• NASA Advisory Council, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX

Wednesday, December 2

• National Press Club Luncheon Featuring SecAF Deborah Lee James, National Press Club, Washington, DC, 12:30 pm ET (remarks begin at 1:00 pm ET)

Thursday, December 3

• Orbital ATK OA-4 Launch to ISS, Cape Canaveral, FL, 30 minute launch window opens at 5:55 pm ET

Friday, December 4

• 8th Annual Dupont Summit on Science, Technology and Environmental Policy, Historic Wittemore House, Washington, DC, 9:00 am – 4:20 pm ET