The House passed the FY2012 Intelligence Authorization bill today.

The bill, H.R. 1892, authorizes funding and activities for the nation’s intelligence community.

Passage of the bill is timely not only as it comes two days before the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, but next week the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) will celebrate its 50th anniversary at a fancy event at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly VA (not far from NRO’s offices). The announcement promises that two legacy satellite reconnaissance systems will be unveiled that evening.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) released its annual report on China’s military power last week. Regarding space activities, it contains few surprises, but seems just a tad softer in its assessment of China’s military space goals, if not its capabilities.

One interesting comment in the newly released report, for example, is that the commander of the PLA Air Force (PLAAF), General Xu Qiliang, publicly retracted a statement he made last year about the likelihood of militarization of space.

DOD stated in its 2010 version of the report that General Xu “said that the trend of military competition extending to space is ‘inevitable’ and emphasized the transformation of the PLAAF from a homeland defense focus to one that ‘integrates air and space,’ and that possesses both ‘offensive and defensive’ capabilities.” This year, DOD reveals that General Xu retracted his “assertion that the militarization of space was a ‘historic inevitability’ after President Hu Jintao swiftly contradicted him.”

That does not mean China is any less interested in military uses of space, however. Both the 2010 and 2011 versions of the report assert in slightly different words that the PLA regards the ability to utilize space and deny adversaries access to space as “central to enabling modern, informatized warfare.”

The 2010 report goes on to say that “China is developing the ability to attack an adversary’s space assets, accelerating the militarization of space. PLA writings emphasize the necessity of ‘destroying, damaging and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance ….and communications systems.”

This year’s report seems somewhat softer, however. While it uses the same quote about the PLA writings, it omits the assessment China is “accelerating the militarization of space.”

This year’s report notes that in 2010 China successfully conducted 15 launches, “a national record.” Among the Chinese satellites were five Beidou-2 navigation satellites and nine remote sensing satellites for both military and civilian uses. China also buys commercial imagery from European, Canadian, Indian, and U.S. companies to supplement their own imagery, DOD says.

As for the Chinese human spaceflight program, this report asserts that China plans a “permanently manned space station by 2020 and landing a human on the moon by 2030.”

As it has in the past, DOD asserts that China is developing a range of antisatellite (ASAT) technologies, not only the direct ascent ASAT whose test created a tremendous cloud of space debris in 2007. China was subjected to international condemnation for conducting that test and creating a hazard to everyone’s space operations. Nonetheless, DOD asserts that China continues to “develop and refine this system,” as well as “other kinetic and directed-energy… technologies for ASAT missions.”

This annual report is required by Congress. DOD put a note on the front page of this edition to let the taxpayers know that it cost just over $73,000 to produce.

The two flights of its Falcon HTV-2 hypersonic test vehicle may not have turned out as planned, but that isn’t stopping the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from working on plans to travel to another star.

Writing in the New York Times today, Dennis Overbye recaps DARPA’s 100-year Starship Study through which DARPA will award $500,000 in seed money to an organization to study what it would take “organizationally, technically, sociologically and ethically” to send people on an interstellar voyage. NASA’s Ames Research Center is partnering with DARPA on the project. David Neyland, director of technical technology at DARPA, is quoted as saying that the agency is not trying to design an interstellar craft itself, but instead wants to find an organization that will carry the concept forward for the next 100 years with private sector, not government, funding.

The idea is that new technologies would be developed over the decades as the effort unfolds that will be useful to the Department of Defense and NASA. DARPA’s announcement of the project last year said that the study “looks to develop the business case for an enduring organization designed to incentivize breakthroughs enabling future spaceflight.”

A three-day symposium will be held in Orlando, FL September 30-October 2 to discuss the responses to DARPA’s request for information. The meeting is free and open to the public.

DARPA appointed an Engineering Review Board to study the issues associated with the loss of the second Falcon HTV-2 test vehicle.

The second of two launches of the Falcon HTV -2 ended the same way as the first with loss of contact prematurely.

HTV-2 project manager Air Force Maj. Chris Schultz said that although boosting the aircraft into the required trajectory was well understood, “We do not yet know how to achieve desired control during the aerodynamic phase of flight. It’s vexing. …”

DARPA’s Falcon HTV-2 was launched successfully today, but contact was lost prematurely.

The launch was delayed from yesterday because of downrange weather conditions.

The Minotaur IV rocket successfully lofted the hypersonic test vehicle and it began its glide back to Earth. However, DARPA lost contact with it prematurely according to the agency’s website. A similar fate befell the first of these two test flights, although DARPA obtained nine minutes worth of usable data that time.

Launch of the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA’s) Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2 (HTV-2) has been delayed because of weather.

This is the second of two Falcon HTV-2 flights (not to be confused with SpaceX’s Falcon launch vehicle or Japan’s HTV cargo spacecraft for the International Space Station). The first was in April 2010. HTV-2 is designed to provide data on hypersonic flight that could lead to development of hypersonic vehicles in the future. The first test flight collected 139 seconds of data in the Mach 22 to Mach 17 range, but DARPA lost contact with the aircraft after nine minutes of flight according to Aviation Week & Space Technology.

The Minotaur IV launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA was delayed today because of poor down-range weather. Another attempt will be made tomorrow between 7:00 am and 1:00 pm PDT.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta sent a letter to DOD personnel yesterday reassuring them that although DOD must share in budget cuts, he would “fight for you and your families” as the debt limit/deficit reduction deal plays out. His specific concern is the potential across-the-board cuts that would take effect if the 12-person congressional commission — or “supercommittee” as it has come to be known — fails to reach agreement on more cuts.

The debt limit/deficit reduction deal signed into law on Tuesday included immediate agreement on $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years of which $350 million is from defense. However, it creates a 12-person congressional supercommittee that is chartered to put forward by Thanksgiving — and that Congress must pass by Christmas — another round of cuts totalling $1.2 – 1.5 trillion over 10 years. As an incentive, a provision is included that says that if the supercommittee fails to reach agreement or Congress fails to pass it, a set of automatic across-the-board cuts would take place. Those cuts would be distributed evenly between defense and non-defense spending. Potential cuts to Medicare providers are permissible, but other cuts are not, including cuts to Medicare benefits and Social Security. The New York Times has a helpful graphic of how the deficit deal works.

Panetta said in his letter that the across-the-board cuts were designed to be “unpalatable” to force the congressional supercommittee to reach agreement and Congress to approve it. Panetta, a former congressman and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), referred back to the problems created after the Vietnam War with across-the-board funding cuts. He insisted that DOD must think carefully about what its requirements are for the future and cut in specific areas: “By better aligning our resources with our priorities, the Department can lead the way in moving towards a more disciplined defense budget.”

Note: The title and text of this article was revised to indicate that the congressional “commission” set up by the debt llimit/deficit reduction deal has come to be known as a “supercommittee” and to include a more specific reference to the deal.

Today, President Obama nominated Ashton B. Carter to be the new Deputy Secretary of Defense.

This is part of the change in command at the top level of the Department of Defense. Bob Gates resigned as Secretary of Defense and was replaced by Leon Panetta last month.

Carter would replace William J. Lynn III in the deputy position. Lynn left the department shortly after Gates. Carter currently is the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD/ATL). The nomination requires Senate confirmation,

Hans Mark, former Secretary of the Air Force and former NASA Deputy Administrator, will testify to a House Armed Services Committee (HASC) subcommittee next week about defense investments in technology to meet emerging threats.

Mark, currently a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, is a renowned figure in aerospace engineering, defense policy, and space policy. National Journal’s Daybook (subscription required) lists Mark as one of the witnesses although the Committee’s website does not yet. Other witnesses according to Daybook are from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the National Defense University’s Center for Technology and National Security Policy, and the Pipeline Financial Group.

The Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee hearing is on July 26 at 1:30 pm EDT in 2212 Rayburn House Office Building. Times, dates and witnesses for congressional hearings are subject to change; check the committee’s website for up to date information.

Space programs at NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) suffer from poor quality control on parts according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The report also looked at some of DOD’s missile programs.

GAO found that “…quality problems exist that have endangered entire missions along with less-visible problems leading to unnecessary repair, scrap, rework, and stoppage; long delays; and millions in cost growth.” It reviewed 21 programs at DOD and NASA and quality problems affected all of them, the report states.

The causes of the parts problems included “poor workmanship, undocumented and untested manufacturing processes, poor control of those processes and materials and failure to prevent contamination, poor part design, design complexity, and an inattention to manufacturing risks.”

The 21 programs included nine at DOD and 12 at NASA that had completed their critical design reviews by October 2009. GAO determined that 64.7 percent of the parts quality problem were associated with electronic parts, 14.7 percent with mechanical parts, and 20.6 percent with materials used in manufacturing. The problems were “directly attributed to poor control of manufacturing processes and materials, poor design, and lack of effective supplier management.”

One example GAO highlighted is DOD’s Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite that is slowly making its way to geostationary orbit (GEO). A failure of its apogee engine left the satellite stranded in a low orbit. The Air Force is using other propulsion systems to raise the orbit to GEO, which is expected to take about a year. The failure was traced to “foreign object debris” — GAO said it was a piece of cloth — inadvertently left in a fuel line. This problem was on top of earlier quality control problems that GAO said cost the AEHF program at least $250 million and contributed to a launch delay of two years.

The programs studied by GAO were the following:

DOD-Air Force

Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satellites
Global Positioning System Block IIF
Space-Based Infrared System High Program
Space-Based Space Surveillance Block 10

DOD-Navy

Mobile User Objective System

DOD-MDA

Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense
Ground-Based Midcourse Defense
Space Tracking and Surveillance System
Targets and Countermeasures

NASA

Aquarius
Global Precipitation Measurement Mission
Glory
Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory
James Webb Space Telescope
Juno
Landsat Data Continuity Mission
Magnetospheric Multiscale
Mars Science Laboratory
National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project
Radiation Belt Storm Probes
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Replenishment