Category: Space Law

FAA Space Office To Get Budget Boost from House Appropriators – UPDATE

FAA Space Office To Get Budget Boost from House Appropriators – UPDATE

House appropriators are recommending a budget boost for FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).  The office received $19.8 million for FY2017, but the Trump budget proposal for FY2018 is $2 million less.  By contrast, the House appropriations subcommittee that funds the office is proposing $21.587 million. [UPDATE:  the subcommittee approved that amount on July 11 as did the full House Appropriations Committee on July 17.]

The Transportation-HUD (T-HUD) subcommittee will mark up the bill tomorrow evening.  In total, the bill allocates $56.5 billion for the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  That total is $1.1 billion less than FY2017 and $8.6 billion above the Trump Administration’s request.

FAA/AST regulates, facilitates and promotes the commercial space launch industry.  Among its responsibilities is issuing permits and licenses related to commercial space launches and reentries.  With the burgeoning growth in both areas, advocates point to the need to provide the office with enough funding to hire sufficient staff to process applications in a timely manner.  Debate continues over whether to expand FAA/AST’s role into non-military space situational awareness or regulating non-traditional space activities, but on a more fundamental level the question is how to ensure the office can effectively execute its current assignments.

The office received $17.8 million for FY2016.  The FY2017 request from the Obama Administration was $19.8 million and Congress eventually appropriated that amount in May 2017.  Reps. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) and Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) were particularly influential in convincing House appropriators to provide that level of funding last year.

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration was formulating its FY2018 budget request while Congress was still debating the final FY2017 numbers and FAA/AST was funded by a Continuing Resolution at its FY2016 level.  Thus, the Trump Administration may have viewed its FY2018 request of $17.8 million as level funding when in fact it would be a $2 million cut.

In any case, the T-HUD subcommittee’s recommendation of $21.587 million is a boost over FY2017.  In March, Bridenstine testified before the subcommittee in favor of a $23 million budget, a $3.2 million increase above FY2017.  The $21.587 million proposed by the T-HUD subcommittee is a bit more than half of that.

FAA also funds commercial space transportation-related activities in two other accounts, but the draft bill released by the committee today does not provide sufficient detail to know how those requests fared.   The FY2018 requests are $1.796 million in Research, Engineering and Development (RE&D) for AST’s Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation and other R&D related to safely integrating commercial space transportation into the National Airspace System; and $4.5 million in Facilities and Equipment (F&E) for the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) to acquire a Space Data Integrator tool that will enable ATO to safely reduce the amount of airspace that must be closed, respond to unusual scenarios, and release airspace as a mission progresses.

Tomorrow’s subcommittee markup is at 7:00 pm ET.  It will be webcast.

 

What’s Happening in Space Policy July 10-14, 2017

What’s Happening in Space Policy July 10-14, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of July 10-14, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Congress and the space policy community overall are back to work in full force this week after a bit (but only a bit) of a break for July 4.

The House plans to take up the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) towards the end of the week. The House Rules Committee meets on Wednesday to consider which amendments will be allowed to be considered during floor debate.  As shown on the committee’s website, 394 have been filed as of today.  Five are related to space activities.

One is proposed by Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH).  It would strike a provision in the bill that requires DOD to establish a Space Corps within the Air Force, analogous to the Marine Corps, which is part of the Department of the Navy, and a U.S. Space Command as a subunit of U.S. Strategic Command.  The provision is very controversial.   It was written by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee’s (HASC’s) Strategic Forces subcommittee, and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), the subcommittee’s top Democrat.  However, it is opposed by the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff and is not included in the Senate version of the bill.

Turner first tried to remove the provision during full committee markup by HASC on June 28.  His amendment instead would require DOD to study the need for such a reorganization and report to Congress next year. Turner is a former chairman of the Strategic Forces subcommittee and remains a member.  He argued that Congress has insufficient information to make such a major move.  Rogers, Cooper and HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) insisted the idea has been discussed for years and it is time to do it.  The amendment was rejected and the provision remains in the bill.  Turner wants the full House to have a chance to weigh in.  Will be interesting to see if the Rules Committee permits it.  Floor debate on the bill could begin late Wednesday or Thursday.

The House Appropriations Transportation-HUD subcommittee (T-HUD) will mark up its FY2018 funding bill on Tuesday, which includes the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST).  FAA/AST got $19.8 million in FY2017, a $2 million increase over the $17.8 million it received for FY2016.  Unfortunately, the Trump Administration formulated much of its FY2018 budget request before Congress finalized the FY2017 budget.  At that time, FAA/AST was funded at the $17.8 million level through a Continuing Resolution that held agencies to their FY2016 limits.  The Trump Administration may have thought it was proposing level funding for the office by requesting $17.8 million for FY2018, but Congress ultimately did give FAA/AST the $2 million boost it requested.  Now, if Congress funds the requested level for FY2018, it will mean a $2 million cut.  Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA), a member of the full Appropriations Committee (though not the T-HUD subcommittee) and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) fought hard on FAA/AST’s behalf last year to get the $19.8 million.  We’ll see if they can convince appropriators to keep at least the $19.8 million this time.  (Bridenstine testified before the subcommittee in March in favor of another boost — to $23 million — for FY2018.)

The Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), has rescheduled its hearing on commercial space partnerships for Thursday morning.  The hearing was scheduled for June 21, but on June 20 it was postponed without explanation.  The witness list is the same as before except that SpaceX SVP for Global Business and Government Affairs Tim Hughes will substitute for President and COO Gwynne Shotwell.  The other witnesses are NASA KSC Director Bob Cabana, fresh from hosting Vice President Pence last week; Tim Ellis from Relativity; Moriba Jah from the University of Texas at Austin; and Jeff Manber from Nanoracks.

Off the Hill, but still in D.C., there are a slew of really interesting events, including the Secure World Foundation’s panel discussion tomorrow (Monday) with industry perspectives on the space debris problem; the Satellite Industry Association’s release of its annual State of the Satellite Industry report on Tuesday morning; an ISU-DC space cafe Tuesday evening with experts from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center talking about how we benefit every single day from data acquired by earth science satellites; the Future Space Leaders Foundation annual Future Space conference on Thursday; and a seminar sponsored by GWU’s Space Policy Institute and the Aerospace Corporation on Friday morning on “Ensuring U.S. Leadership in Space.”

In other parts of the country, AIAA will holds its annual propulsion and energy forum in Atlanta and NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA will hold a three-day symposium celebrating the center’s 100th birthday.  The National Academies committee that is performing the mid-term review of the 2011 planetary science Decadal Survey “Vision and Voyages” will meet at CalTech in Pasadena, CA from Tuesday to Thursday.  Open sessions of the meeting are available remotely via WebEx/telecon.   NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) will meet via teleconference on Monday to review with the Mars science community the input it plans to provide to the Academies committee later in the week.

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

Monday, July 10

Monday-Wednesday, July 10-12

Tuesday, July 11

Tuesday-Thursday, July 11-13

Wednesday, July 12

Wednesday-Friday, July 12-14

Thursday, July 13

Friday, July 14

 

Note:  This was updated to add the Defense One Tech Summit on Thursday.

What’s Happening in Space Policy July 2-7, 2017

What’s Happening in Space Policy July 2-7, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of July 2-7, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess this week.

During the Week

The week got off to a disappointing start for the Chinese space program today with the failure of its Long March 5 rocket.  This was the second launch for the rocket, China’s largest.  Not only was it intended to place a new type of communications satellite into orbit, it was also a final test before China launches a lunar sample return mission, Chang’e-5, in November. That launch now seems likely to be delayed.  An investigation is underway. We will keep you updated this week as more information becomes available.

Tomorrow (Monday), SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth, ending the SpX-11 cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS).  It was delayed one day because of inclement weather in the Pacific landing zone.   NASA TV will provide coverage of Dragon’s release from ISS at 2:28 am ET, but not of the splashdown.

Tuesday, July 4, is Independence Day in the United States.  The Federal government is closed for the holiday, along with many state and local governments and businesses.

Congress is taking this entire week off after a hectic pace last week.  The July 4 recess is one of those milestones on the congressional calendar by which they hope to get certain things done.  That may not be working out in some areas (like health care), but House appropriators made good progress on FY2018 appropriations bills, including defense (which cleared full committee) and Commerce-Justice-Science (approved at the subcommittee level).  The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is also considered must-pass legislation and both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees approved their versions of the bill.  All that legislation still has a long way to go — especially the appropriations bills since there is no agreement yet on the total amount of money Congress will make available for defense and non-defense activities — but it’s a start.  We’ll see what happens when they return next week.  FY2018 begins on October 1.  There is little, if any, expectation that the appropriations process will be done by then.

The big space policy event this week will be Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Thursday.  President Trump signed the Executive Order reestablishing the White House National Space Council, with Pence as its chairman, on Friday.  Expectations are high that Pence will have something significant to say about the direction of the U.S. space program while he’s at KSC and perhaps announce who will be the Council’s Executive Director.  NASA TV will provide live coverage of the visit.

Rumors about who will be NASA Administrator and when the announcement will be made have gone quiet.  Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) is an oft-mentioned contender, so it was a bit of a surprise that he was not at the White House signing ceremony on Friday, but neither was Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot.  Speculation is rampant about who was on the invitation list but couldn’t make it on a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend when many people and their families were already beginning their July 4 vacations, versus those who weren’t on the list at all, and how to read those tea leaves.

Overall, it’s a light week for space policy aficionados. A much needed break.

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

Monday, July 3

Wednesday, July 5

Thursday, July 6

NASA FY2018 Funding Bill Advances in Congress

NASA FY2018 Funding Bill Advances in Congress

The House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA approved its FY2018 funding bill today, while its Senate counterpart held a hearing on the request.  These are only the initial steps on a long road to a final budget deal, but there is no question that NASA continues to have strong bipartisan support from its appropriators.

The House Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee approved boosting NASA’s budget to $19.872 billion, $218 million more than FY2017 and $780 million more than President Trump requested.  It adopted the draft bill released yesterday by voice vote without amendment.

That does not mean the bill has universal support.  Overall, the bill provides about one percent less than FY2017 for all the departments and agencies it funds.  If NASA, for example, gets more money, others get less.

The top Democrat on the subcommittee, José Serrano (D-NY), said that he could not support the bill in its current form.  He listed a number of cuts in the bill to non-NASA activities as objectionable, such as to the Legal Services Corporation, to the Census Bureau as it prepares for the 2020 census, and a 19 percent cut to climate science at NOAA.  As for NASA, he revealed that the subcommittee is cutting an additional $50 million from NASA’s earth science budget compared to the request, which is already a reduction of $167 million from FY2017.  (Such details are not in the bill itself, but are in an accompanying explanatory report that will be released 24 hours before the bill is marked up by the full committee.)

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the top Democrat on the full committee, made a broader complaint about the bill — that the House has not yet adopted a Budget Resolution setting the total amount of federal funding available for FY2018.

Strictly speaking, the House and Senate are supposed to agree on a Budget Resolution setting that figure, after which specific amounts are allocated to each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees to spend.  Republicans denounced Democrats for not passing Budget Resolutions when Democrats were in control, but have had their own challenges in doing so.  The chair of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), has been unable to get agreement even among her Republican colleagues.  There is broad agreement to increase defense spending, but not on compensating cuts to non-defense spending.

Indeed, subcommittee chairman John Culberson (R-TX) expressed hope that there will be a budget agreement that will provide more money for his subcommittee so it can “backfill some of the holes” in what was approved today.  Anything is possible, but Congress has a long journey ahead to decide on FY2018 funding and deal with increasing the debt limit this fall, all while the budget caps imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act are in effect.

Lowey said the committee should not be “patting ourselves on the back” for moving forward on appropriations bills like CJS because there still is no Budget Resolution or “any semblance of a plan to keep the government funded and avoid a debt default.”

Nonetheless, when the vote was called, none of the Democrats said “no.”  That is not really surprising since today’s action merely moves the bill from subcommittee to full committee where the debate can continue.  No date was announced for full committee markup.

Over on the Senate side, Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot fielded questions from CJS subcommittee chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL); the new top Democrat on the subcommittee, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), replacing Barbara Mikulski (who retired) as the Ranking Member; and other subcommittee members.

This was the third hearing on NASA’s budget request this month.  The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and the House Appropriations CJS subcommittee each held their hearings on June 8. At all three hearings, concern was expressed about the Trump Administration’s proposal to eliminate NASA’s Office of Education and five earth science programs (PACE, RBI, CLARREO-Pathfinder, OCO-3, and the earth facing instruments on DSCOVR).  Support for the Office of Education is bipartisan, while support for earth science is primarily from Democratic members.

Today, Senators from both parties made clear that they object to dismantling the Office of Education and its EPSCoR, Space Grant, MUREP, and  SEAP programs.  Lightfoot explained that NASA hopes to be able to continue engaging with students through programs in the Space Technology Mission Directorate and Science Mission Directorate, but conceded they were not replacements for the terminated programs.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who won Mikulski’s seat and now sits on the CJS subcommittee (though as a junior member) and Shaheen spoke out against the earth science cuts.  Lightfoot explained that he was given direction to cut the budget and decisions were made based on whether a program was recommended in the 2007 Decadal Survey for earth science, how the program was performing, or if NASA had other ways to get the needed data.  “With the budget box we were in .. that was how we made the decisions.”  Shaheen was not convinced that was the reason for terminating the earth-facing instruments on DSCOVR.   She characterized it as a political decision.

The RESTORE-L satellite servicing program was also a topic of considerable discussion.  NASA had been planning to develop technology to refuel a satellite in low Earth orbit and demonstrate the technology by refueling the Landsat 7 satellite.  The Trump Administration wants to limit NASA to only developing the technology, not demonstrating it, and merge NASA’s program with a different satellite servicing technology development effort at DARPA.

West Virginia Senators Joe Manchin (D) and Shelley Moore Capito (R) along with Van Hollen debated that decision.  Lightfoot argued that NASA will develop the technology and turn it over to the private sector to use through a public private partnership.  The Senators were skeptical that the private sector would step in without more NASA involvement.  West Virginia University is involved in RESTORE-L, which is managed at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Shelby’s questions illustrated his continued strong support for the Space Launch System and criticism of the commercial crew program.  At the end of the hearing, however, he asked a more general question — what is NASA’s biggest challenge today.

Stability, Lightfoot replied.  While expressing gratitude for the strong bipartisan budget support for NASA on Capitol Hill, he noted that the Administration’s proposal is for NASA’s budget to remain flat funded at $19.092 billion for the “outyears” (the next four years after FY2018), without an adjustment even for inflation.  “We’re not working on one-year programs here. When you look at things like flat outyears … that’s $4.5 billion in potential lost buying power.  How do I plan for that?”

House Appropriators Propose $19.9 Billion for NASA, Full Funding for JPSS and GOES

House Appropriators Propose $19.9 Billion for NASA, Full Funding for JPSS and GOES

The House Appropriations Committee released the draft FY2018 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill today, which funds NASA and NOAA among other agencies.  The CJS subcommittee will mark up the bill tomorrow.  The draft proposes $19.872 billion for NASA. Although the dollar number for NOAA’s satellite programs is not included in the bill, it does promise full funding for NOAA’s two major weather satellite programs.

Those are the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) of polar-orbiting weather satellites and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series R (GOES-R) satellites.  The JPSS program funds the first two satellites in what is intended to be a series of four.  The other two have a different program name and funding line – the Polar Follow On (PFO) program. The GOES-R program funds four GOES geostationary satellite.

The Trump Administration supports full funding for JPSS and GOES-R.  The question is what will happen to PFO and a space weather follow-on program to build future satellites to replace the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).  The Trump Administration proposed deep cuts for those.   The subcommittee’s recommendation was not included in the bill text released today, but should become clear either tomorrow during the markup or when the accompanying report is released.

Trump proposed a substantial cut for NASA in his FY2018 budget request — from the $19.653 billion provided by Congress in FY2017 to $19.092 billion for FY2018 and the same total for each of the subsequent four years.

The House CJS subcommittee recommendation is an increase not only above the Trump request, but also above the FY2017 level:  $19.872 billion.  The proposed House CJS subcommittee funding is as follows (see SpacePolicyOnline.com’s FY2018 NASA budget fact sheet to compare with FY2017 and FY2016).

  • Science:  $5,858.5 million, including $495 million for the Europa mission outlined in the most recent National Academies Decadal Survey (meaning an orbiter and a lander) with the requirement that they be launched on the Space Launch System (SLS) in 2022 and 2024 (the same requirement included in last year’s appropriations bill)
  • Aeronautics:  $660.0 million
  • Space Technology:  $686.5 million
  • Exploration:  $4,550.0 million, including $1,350 million for Orion; $2,150 million for SLS; $600 million for Exploration Ground Systems; and $450 million for Exploration Research and Development.  Of the funding for SLS, $300 million is for the Exploration Upper Stage.  EM-2 is to be launched by 2021.
  • Space Operations:  $4,676.634 million
  • Education:  $90 million, of which $18 million is for EPSCoR and $40 million is for Space Grant (Trump proposed eliminating NASA’s Office of Education and funding for these and other programs funded by that office)
  • Safety, Security and Mission Services:  $2,826.2 million
  • Construction, Environmental Compliance and Restoration:  $486.1 million
  • Inspector General:  $37.9 million

The existing restrictions on NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy regarding space cooperation with China remain.

The markup is at 2:00 pm ET tomorrow and will be webcast.

What’s Happening in Space Policy June 26-30, 2017

What’s Happening in Space Policy June 26-30, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of June 26-30, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Congress is racing to complete action on a number of things before the July 4 recess.  Among them is making progress on legislation at the top of congressional priorities — appropriations bills for FY2018 (which begins on October 1) and the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

By the end of the week, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees will have completed their markups of the NDAA, positioning them for floor action once Congress returns — one more step along the legislative path.  As we reported last week, the HASC Strategic Forces subcommittee wants to create a Space Corps within the Air Force and a U.S. Space Command within U.S. Strategic Command.  Its Senate counterpart will markup its version of the bill tomorrow (Monday), but it is closed so we may not know whether it takes a position on that issue until the end of the SASC process later this week. The full HASC will mark up the bill, H.R. 2810, on Wednesday.   HASC markups are usually marathon sessions that last into the wee hours of the night.  They are open and webcast.

SASC, by contrast, does everything behind closed doors.  All of the subcommittee and full committee markups begin tomorrow and hopefully finish by Thursday, but they have Friday in reserve if needed.  The markups all take place in the same room and the first three subcommittees, including Strategic Forces, are scheduled just 30 minutes apart, suggesting that they already have decided what they are going to do and the markups are pro forma. Full committee markup, on the other hand, is a multi-day event.

The NDAA is an authorization bill, of course, that sets policy and recommends funding levels, but money only comes from appropriations committees.  The House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee will mark up the defense appropriations bill this week as well.  The overall budget battle over how much to add to defense and what cuts will be made to non-defense programs is far from over, but the committee is determined to move forward anyway. It already has approved the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) bill.

Traditionally (but not necessarily) the House acts first on appropriations bills and, indeed, the Senate Appropriations Committee is still in the hearing phase.  The Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee will hold its hearing on the FY2018 NASA budget request on Thursday morning.  Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot is the only witness.  At exactly the same time, the Space Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on in-space propulsion.   NASA Associate Administrators for Human Exploration and Operations (Bill Gerstenmaier) and Space Technology (Steve Jurczyk) will be joined at the witness table by former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz (of VASIMR engine fame), Mitchell Walker representing the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Joe Cassady from Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Anthony Pancotti of MSNW LLC, which is developing the NASA-funded Electrodeless Lorentz Force (ELF-250) thruster and the ElectroMagnetic Plasmoid Thruster (EMPT).

Lots and lots of other really interesting events going on, including the Space Weather Enterprise Forum in DC; the NewSpace 2017 conference in San Francisco; the IAA’s Future of Space Exploration — Towards Moon Village and Beyond in Torino, Italy; and Asteroid Day on Friday, June 30, with events worldwide and a 24-hour broadcast from Luxembourg beginning at 01:00 GMT (which is 9:00 pm ET June 29).

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

Monday, June 26

Tuesday, June 27

Tuesday-Thursday, June 27-29

Tuesday-Friday, June 27-30

Wednesday, June 28

Wednesday-Thursday, June 28-29

Thursday, June 29

Friday, June 30

Rogers Warns Air Force Not To Resist Space Corps Proposal

Rogers Warns Air Force Not To Resist Space Corps Proposal

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) warned top Air Force officials not to undermine his proposal to create a Space Corps within the service.  He characterized his blistering remarks about being “outraged” and “shocked” by their reaction as a “friendly warning,” but it sounded more threatening than that.  Rogers chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC’s) subcommittee that oversees most military space programs. His remarks were made during today’s markup of that subcommittee’s portion of the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The proposal became public on Tuesday when HASC posted the draft bill text and report language that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces took up today.  All the HASC subcommittees are in the process of marking up their segments of the bill.  The full committee will mark up the final bill next Wednesday (June 28).

The idea is to create a Space Corps within the Air Force by January 1, 2019.  It would be analogous to the Marine Corps, which is part of the Department of the Navy.  The Space Corps would be led by a Space Corps Chief of Staff who would report to the Secretary of the Air Force and be a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).  That would be similar to the Commandant of the Marine Corps who reports to the Secretary of the Navy and is a member of the JCS.  The Space Corps Chief of Staff would be co-equal to the Air Force Chief of Staff.  The proposal also would create a U.S. Space Command as a subordinate unit of U.S. Strategic Command.

Rogers and the top Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), said in a joint statement on Tuesday that this reorganization is needed because “the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding.”  They blame not only advances being made by adversaries, but the “crippling organizational and management structure” imposed upon the U.S. national security space enterprise by the existing organization of the Air Force.  They chastised the Air Force for not being able to “even recognize the nature and scope of its problems.”

Rogers’ interest in creating a Space Corps has been rumored for some time and the two top Air Force officials — Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF) Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein — were asked about it during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 17.   Goldfein said this was not the right time to create a Space Corps because he and Wilson are seeking to integrate — not separate — space into the overall military framework as they shift from a paradigm where space was considered a benign environment to one where it is a warfighting domain.  He insisted that separating space would “slow us down.”

Yesterday, Wilson and Goldfein repeated those sentiments to the media.  As reported by Breaking Defense, Wilson said “the Pentagon is complicated enough” and the proposal would only add to its complexity.  “I don’t need another chief of staff and another six deputy chiefs of staff,” she was quoted as saying, while Goldfein repeated his concerns that at this juncture space must be integrated into, not separated from, the other warfighting domains (land, sea, air and cyberspace).

Rogers reacted harshly to those comments today.  “Well, the Secretary should tell me where in this proposal it says she needs to add six more deputy chiefs of staff. If she can’t implement this proposal without creating six new deputy chiefs of staff, that’s on her.”


Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), left. chairman of the Strategic Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee during subcommittee markup of the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act, June 22, 2017.  Screengrab.

He said he was “outraged” and “shocked” by the response from the Air Force leadership.  He later asserted:  “Maybe we need a Space Corps Secretary instead of leaving it to the Secretary of the Air Force.”

Rogers’ lengthy statement acknowledged that he expected the Air Force to resist change, but insisted that “this is the same Air Force that got us into the situation where the Russians and the Chinese are near-peers to us in space. We will not allow the status quo to continue.”

He left an opening for Wilson and Goldfein, saying that he is willing to work with them to find a solution, “but, at the end of the day, whether or not they’re in the room when decisions are made is their choice.  But they better shape up or they’ll figure out who is in charge here.  I’ll let you in on a secret: it’s the branch of our government that controls the purse strings.”

Under the Constitution, only Congress decides how much money the government will spend and on what.

The markup session went on from there.  Several amendments were adopted, but only one concerned space programs.  Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) offered an amendment that essentially urges the Air Force to think more positively about reusable launch vehicles.  It is not prescriptive, but requires the Secretary of Defense to brief HASC by March 1, 2018 on DOD’s “plan to evaluate the risks, benefits, costs, and potential cost-savings of the use of reusable launch vehicles” for national security missions.  During his remarks on the amendment, Franks pointed to recent successful launches by Blue Origin and SpaceX of reusable vehicles and reminded his colleagues that NASA’s space shuttle was reusable and it was utilized for national security launches.  Why then, he asked, would the Air Force pass up an opportunity to save money by using new reusable launch systems?

The amendment was adopted by voice vote.  The text is as follows:

 

HASC Criticizes DOD Management of Space Programs, Wants Space Corps – UPDATE

HASC Criticizes DOD Management of Space Programs, Wants Space Corps – UPDATE

The Strategic Forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) plans to require the creation of a U.S. Space Corps as a separate military service within the Air Force, and a U.S. Space Command within U.S. Strategic Command.  It insists such steps are required to address an erosion of the strategic advantages the United States derives from national security space systems. [UPDATE:  HASC debated the proposal and defeated a Turner amendment to remove it.  The White House opposed it.  Nonetheless, the House passed the bill on July 14 with this provision intact.]

HASC’s subcommittees are marking up their portions of the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week. The Strategic Forces subcommittee oversees most national security space programs and released a draft of its proposal today.  The markup is scheduled for Thursday morning and will be webcast.

In a joint press release, subcommittee chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and ranking member Jim Cooper (D-TN) said there “is bipartisan acknowledgement that the strategic advantages we derive from our national security space systems are eroding.  Not only are there developments by adversaries, but we are imposing upon the national security space enterprise a crippling organizational and management structure and an acquisition system that has led to delays and cost-overruns.”

Efforts to reform defense acquisition in general, and for space systems specifically, have been underway for many years.  Congress and DOD agree that a better system is needed, but not on how to solve the problem.

In October 2015, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work created a new position of Principal DOD Space Advisor (PDSA) to be filled by the Secretary of the Air Force (SecAF) to strengthen the leadership of the space enterprise within the department.   SecAF Deborah Lee James was the first to hold that position, which is now held by the new SecAF Heather Wilson.

In April of this year, Acting Air Force Secretary Lisa Disbrow announced that the Air Force would reorganize its own space leadership team and create a new “A-11” deputy chief of staff position to be filled by a three-star general.  Wilson made it official on June 16.  The new position will be Deputy Chief of Staff for Space Operations and the new directorate will begin operating in August.

At several hearings this year, Air Force officials have repeated the refrain that space no longer is a benign environment, but a warfighting domain.  At a May 17 hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein was asked if he thought it was time to create a Space Corps analogous to the Marine Corps to better focus attention and resources on what is needed for space.  He said no, that the timing is not right.  “Anything that leads to separating space instead of integrating it” into the overall military framework would “slow us down.”

That line of reasoning obviously did not hold sway with the HASC subcommittee.  Rogers and Cooper chastised DOD for “being unable to take the measures necessary to address these problems effectively and decisively, or even recognize the nature and scope of its problems.  Thus, Congress has to step in.”

The subcommittee’s draft bill would create a U.S. Space Corps as a separate military service within the Air Force, analogous to the Marine Corps’ position within the Department of the Navy.  The Space Corps would be responsible for national security space programs currently overseen by the Air Force and would be under the civilian leadership of the SecAF.  The draft bill would also establish a U.S. Space Command as a subordinate unified command within U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), “elevating the space mission to a four-star command and improving the integration of space forces.”  USSTRATCOM itself is headed by a four-star general officer, currently Air Force Gen. John Hyten.  He previously was Commander of Air Force Space Command, also a four-star position, currently filled by Gen. John “Jay” Raymond.  Whether adding another four-star position as the subcommittee wants, and/or the three-star position the Air Force wants, will clarify responsibilities and streamline decision-making is an open question.

The HASC subcommittee’s draft would also:

  • prohibit the Secretary of Defense from entering into contracts for satellite services that pose a cybersecurity threat, or services provided by satellites launched from covered foreign countries, or launched by launch vehicles designed or manufactured by covered foreign countries (meaning countries described in section 1261(c)(2) of the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act — China, North Korea or any state sponsor of terrorism — plus Russia);
  • require development and implementation of a plan to enhance the resilience of GPS capacity, including adding the capability to receive signals from Europe’s Galileo and Japan’s QZSS satellites;
  • establish an annual “Space Flag” training event for space professionals to develop and test doctrine, concepts of operations, and tactics, techniques, and procedures. coordinated among the Secretary of Defense, Commander, Air Force Space Command, Commander, Army Space and Missile Defense Command, and Commander, Navy Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command;
  • extend the pilot program for commercial weather data for another year; and
  • express the sense of Congress on the importance of a space-based missile defense layer.
What’s Happening in Space Policy June 18-24, 2017

What’s Happening in Space Policy June 18-24, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of June 18-24, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the A1:T27

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will begin marking up the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week.  Most military space programs are under the jurisdiction of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.  Its markup is on Thursday morning.  Across Capitol Hill, Senate defense appropriators will begin drilling down into the budget requests from the three services.  They heard from Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford last week about the broad scope of funding issues facing DOD.  This Wednesday they will hear from Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein specifically about Air Force needs.  Most military space programs are in the Air Force budget and Wilson is the Principal DOD Space Advisor.  Separately, Dunford will give a luncheon address at the National Press Club tomorrow (Monday) and Gen. John Hyten, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, will talk about space, nuclear and missile defense modernization Tuesday morning as part of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute space breakfast series (one must register in advance to attend).

On the space science front, NASA will hold a briefing tomorrow (Monday) at NASA’s Ames Research Center on recent discoveries from the exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope.  The briefing is in conjunction with the fourth Kepler Science Conference taking place there all week.  

Back here in Washington, NASA is sponsoring back-to-back briefings on Wednesday about the upcoming solar eclipse.  On August 21, for the first time in 99 years, a total solar eclipse will pass over the United States.  The total eclipse will be visible in 14 states from Oregon to South Carolina.  The rest of North America and parts of South America, Africa and Europe will see a partial eclipse. It is such a rare event that huge traffic jams and other disruptions are expected and it is vitally important that people wear special “eclipse glasses” to look at the sun.  NOT sunglasses.  You need eclipse glasses.  They are inexpensive and readily available from many retailers as a quick look on Amazon.com will reveal.  NASA has arranged these briefings two months before the eclipse so people have plenty of time to get prepared.  The first Wednesday briefing is on logistics and the second is on the science of solar eclipses.  They will take place at the Newseum in Washington and broadcast on NASA TV.

The space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a third hearing on commercial space issues on Wednesday (unfortunately at the same time as the NASA eclipse briefings as well as a very interesting CSIS seminar on “Small Satellites, Big Missions”).  Subcommittee chairman Ted Cruz is holding a series of hearings under the rubric “Reopening the American Frontier.”  The first two were on April 26 and May 23.  This one is focusing on partnerships between the government and the private sector.  Bob Cabana, director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), is the lone government witness.  He has been leading the conversion of KSC from a NASA center to a multi-user spaceport populated almost as much by other government agencies and private sector companies as by NASA itself.  Joining him at the witness table will be Gwynne Shotwell from SpaceX (which leases KSC’s iconic Launch Complex 39A from NASA), Jeff Manber from Nanoracks (which arranges to send cubesats to the International Space Station for deployment into orbit), Moriba Jah from the University of Texas at Austin (an expert on space situational awareness), and Tim Ellis from Relativity (a company whose website says it is “reimagining the way orbital rockets are built and flown”).

This is also Paris Air Show week with the venerable event taking place as usual at Le Bourget outside Paris, France.

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

Sunday, June 18

Monday, June 19

Monday-Friday, June 19-23

Monday-Sunday, June 19-25

Tuesday, June 20

Tuesday-Thursday, June 20-22

Wednesday, June 21

Thursday, June 22

Thursday-Friday, June 22-23

What’s Happening in Space Policy June 11-16, 2017

What’s Happening in Space Policy June 11-16, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of June 11-16, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

This week it’s DOD’s turn to talk to authorizers and appropriators about the FY2018 budget request. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford are the witnesses at each of the four hearings on successive days beginning tomorrow (Monday).  It’s not clear whether military space programs will come up to any great extent, but the hearings should provide some sense of where space activities sit in DOD priorities. Mattis and Dunford testify to the House Armed Services Committee tomorrow, Senate Armed Services on Tuesday, Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on Wednesday, and House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on Thursday.

On Monday, Orbital ATK and NASA will hold a briefing at Wallops Island, VA, home to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), the launch site for Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket.  The briefing will provide an update on the next Orbital ATK cargo mission on a Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), which will launch on Antares from MARS at Wallops. The launch is currently expected in September.  Orbital ATK has launched Cygnus on both Antares from Wallops and United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral.  At first, Orbital ATK used ULA’s Atlas V while it was getting Antares back to flight after an October 2014 failure.  Antares returned to service in October 2016, but the company’s most recent Cygnus mission used the Atlas V again reportedly at NASA’s request.  Atlas V can lift more mass than Antares.

Orbital ATK officials have said they are happy to use either rocket depending on the customer’s requirements, but with this briefing, clearly are trying to highlight Antares and the MARS facility, which is located at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, but owned and operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight  Authority (“Virginia Space”).  NASA Wallops Director Bill Wrobel and Virginia Space Executive Director Dale Nash will join Orbital ATK’s Frank Culbertson and Kurt Eberly for the briefing, which will be livestreamed.  The briefing will take place one day after the most recent Cygnus mission ended.  After about six weeks attached to ISS and one week in independent flight, the S.S. John Glenn fired its engines for a last time today and descended into the atmosphere and disintegrated, as intended. Only one of the ISS cargo resupply spacecraft is designed to survive reentry, SpaceX’s Dragon.

SpaceX’s most recent Dragon arrived at the ISS last Monday and Russia will launch its next Progress cargo resupply mission this Wednesday (with docking on Friday if all goes well).  All these cargo spacecraft comings and goings illustrate the challenges of sending people on lengthy trips beyond low Earth orbit.  Tough enough to provide all the needed supplies and equipment when they are close to home.  It’s going to take a lot of technology development for life support and other systems, and many logistics flights, to support such missions.

NASA’s Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) is meeting Monday-Wednesday at Goddard Space Flight Center.  Michele Gates is on the agenda on Tuesday for 15 minutes to talk about the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), which consumed a lot of SBAG’s attention for the past couple of years.  Presumably her task at this point is just to inform SBAG that the Trump Administration has terminated ARM, but two aspects of it — high power solar electric propulsion development and asteroid hunting — will continue nonetheless.  NASA’s Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green and Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson are also on the agenda along with many other presentations that sound quite interesting, including two by representatives of asteroid mining companies.  The meeting is available remotely through Adobe Connect.

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

Monday, June 12

Monday-Wednesday, June 12-14

Monday-Friday, June 12-16 (continued from last week)

Tuesday, June 13

Wednesday, June 14

Thursday, June 15

Friday, June 16

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