UPDATE, May 20, 2015:   The Senate Commerce Committee approved the bill, as amended, today.  The amendments are posted on the committee’s website.  

ORIGINAL STORY, May 14, 2015:  A bill introduced today in the Senate by the chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee would set stiff requirements for future NOAA satellites as part of an effort to improve “seasonal” weather forecasts.  The bill, S. 1331, is scheduled for markup by the committee next week.

Committee chairman John Thune (R-SD) teamed with Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) to introduce the Seasonal Forecasting Improvement Act.  “Seasonal” is defined in the bill as longer than two weeks, but shorter than two years.  The main goal is to improve forecasts for unusually cold winters or hot summers, or drought, but the bill also includes provisions aimed at reforming NOAA’s procurement of satellites.

The intent of some of the satellite-related provisions is not clear and questions posed to the committee by SpacePolicyOnline.com were not answered as of the time of this writing. The following summary therefore relies simply on the language in the bill, which would require NOAA to —

• improve procurement of polar and geostationary satellites and assess the operational viability of alternate observation platforms such as microsatellite constellations and ocean observing platforms;
• use competitive procurement processes to acquire polar and geostationary satellites “in a program phase via a single procurement action” (“program phase” is defined as acquisition of a series of satellites sharing a common architecture, which sounds like a block buy);
• assure that satellites are procured or acquired in a manner that “secures the best value” that takes into consideration integration with current ground systems, integration of spacecraft and instruments, capacity to respond to changes in requirements and credibility of risk management, and continuity and consistency of capability;
• complete and operationalize the radio occultation “program of record in effect on the day before enactment of this Act” by deploying constellations of microsatellites in equatorial and polar orbits, integrating the resulting data into all national operational weather forecast models, and ensuring the resulting data are free and open to all;
• develop all specifications for NOAA satellites based on “operational needs”; and
• contract with the National Academy of Sciences by September 2018 — after its next Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space is completed — for a 2-year study that includes recommendations on how to make NOAA’s satellite portfolio more robust and cost-effective (the bill lists a number of specific topics to be addressed).

In addition, NOAA is prohibited from procuring any future “program phase” of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) if the aggregate cost exceeds the aggregate cost “that was incurred … in procuring the Joint Polar Satellite System 1 and 2” as adjusted for inflation.  NOAA usually expresses the cost of the JPSS program, which includes the first two satellites, as $11.3 billion.  That cost includes about $4 billion from NOAA’s share of the since-cancelled DOD-NOAA-NASA National Polar-orbiting Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).  Whether the bill’s sponsors intend to use $11.3 billion, as adjusted for inflation, as the ceiling for the cost of additional JPSS “program phases” or if they mean to exclude the NPOESS costs is one of the questions that remains to be answered.

The committee plans to markup this bill on May 20, along with several others, including one on Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness.

The House is scheduled to debate its Weather Forecasting Improvement Act, H.R. 1561, next week.  H.R. 1561 and S. 1331 seem to have similar intents, especially changing how NOAA procures satellites, but take different approaches.

UPDATE, MAY 14, 2015:  The subcommittee approved the draft bill today on a voice vote with no amendments.  The next step is full committee markup.  No date was announced.

ORIGINAL STORY, MAY 13, 2015: The House Appropriations Committee today released the draft FY2016 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that will be marked up at subcommittee level on Thursday.  It recommends the same total budget level for NASA as the President requested, but allocates the funding differently.  Among the changes is a big increase for a robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, a favorite of subcommittee chairman Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) who has led successful efforts to add money for it in the past.  The Space Launch System (SLS) also gets a boost, including funds for an “enhanced” upper stage, while the commercial crew program is funded below the request.

The President is requesting $18.529 billion for NASA in FY2016 and that is the same as the subcommittee’s recommendation, so any additions or reductions recommended in the bill take place in a zero-sum context — if money is added for one activity, other activities suffer the consequences.

For example, the request includes only $30 million for a Europa mission. The bill allocates $140 million and specifies that it be launched by 2022 using NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), which is still in development.  In addition to that funding in the Science portion of NASA’s budget, it specifies that $25 million of the $625 million recommended for Space Technology be spent on icy satellites surface technology and test beds.  Europa is one of those icy satellites (or “icy moons”) — a moon orbiting another planet in the solar system that is covered by ice.  NASA’s current plan for a Europa mission is for an orbiter, but advocates are pushing for a lander as well. 

NASA officials do not see a funding path that permits a Europa launch before the mid-2020s, but the subcommittee clearly has other ideas.  Where the money will come from elsewhere in NASA’s budget is not apparent in the bill.

The total amount recommended for Science in the draft bill is $5.237 billion, a $51 million cut compared to the $5.289 billion request.  Adding in the $110 million increase for Europa, that means other Science programs are absorbing a reduction of $161 million.  The House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee on April 30 approved, on a party-line vote, a 2016-2017 NASA authorization bill (H.R. 2039) that calls for deep cuts to NASA’s earth science program raising concerns that is where appropriators also plan to cut. 

SLS fares very well in the bill.  The Obama Administration proposed cuts to both the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft.  SLS and Orion are priorities for both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and the Administration’s decision to propose reductions heightens a long standing tension between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.  The NASA authorization bill approved by House SS&T would restore both SLS and Orion to their current funding levels, but the draft appropriations bill favors SLS over Orion.  In the draft bill, Orion would get the same as the Administration proposed for this year ($1.096 billion instead of its current $1.194 billion), but SLS would get a hefty increase.  For  development, SLS would get $1.85 billion.  The request is $1.36 billion and its current funding is $1.7 billion.  The draft appropriations bill makes the SLS amount look even larger by combining the funds for development and ground systems ($410 million, the same as the request), plus a new category of “program integration” funds at $53 million for FY2016.  That yields a total of $2.313 billion, which would compare with $1.766 billion in the request if the same accounts are combined.

The $1.85 billion for SLS development includes $50 million for an “enhanced” upper stage.  Many of the payloads expected to be launched by SLS require a large upper stage — often called the “exploration upper stage” or EUS — but NASA does not have the funds to build it now.  Instead it is developing a less capable interim upper stage for early SLS flights, but advocates think it would be more cost effective to move directly to the EUS.  The subcommittee apparently agrees.

The commercial crew program, by contrast, would get $1.00 billion compared to the $1.24 billion request.  That is still a significant increase over the $805 million provided for FY2015, but NASA insists that anything less than the request could mean renegotiating the fixed price contracts with SpaceX and Boeing.

A SpacePolicyOnline.com fact sheet provides a breakdown of what is proposed in the draft appropriations bill compared with the request, and a separate table shows what the House SS&T committee recommended in its authorization bill.

UPDATE, May 13, 2015:  The full committee approved the bill today with no changes to the FAA space office funding.

ORIGINAL STORY, May 12, 2015:  The full House Appropriations Committee will mark up the FY2016 Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD) bill tomorrow (May 13).  It plans to hold the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) to its FY2015 funding level rather than approving a requested increase even though the draft report accompanying the bill praises the office and its intention to expand its efforts towards commercial lunar operations.

After expressing support for using NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) for commercial launches, the draft report lauds AST’s “willingness to leverage its existing launch licensing authority to encourage private sector investment in lunar systems that will work in tandem with SLS and Orion” and asks for more details on specific “zones of exclusive operation on the lunar surface.” 

It also encourages the FAA to issue regulations for insurance requirements for State and local property.  Only Federal property is addressed in existing regulations, which became an issue when the State of Virginia failed to insure its property at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility that was damaged by Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares failure in October 2014.

Despite asking AST to do this additional work, the committee proposes to deny a requested $1.5 million increase — from $16.605 million in FY2015 to $18.114 million in FY2016.  Instead, the office would be level-funded.  AST is part of the FAA’s operations budget and the total request is $9.915 billion.  The committee is set to approve $9.869 billion, a reduction of $45 million from the request, but $129 million more than FY2015. 

The draft report is based on the T-HUD subcommittee mark up of the bill on April 29.  Amendments could be offered at the full committee markup tomorrow or on the floor of the House when the bill is debated there.  The full committee markup is scheduled to begin at 10:15 am ET tomorrow.

UPDATE, May 13, 2015:  Senator Cruz issued a press statement today that includes expressions of support for the bill from a variety of commercial space industry companies and organizations.

ORIGINAL STORY, May 12, 2015: The sponsors of a bipartisan Senate bill to update the Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA) issued a statement today saying the bill responds to the needs of a changing industry.  The bill brings the future of the International Space Station (ISS) into the commercial space launch debate.  The two are intertwined with the advent of the commercial cargo and commercial crew programs, but the bill language is more general, formally committing the United States to ISS operations through 2024 as proposed by the White House last year.  The bill is quite different from legislation that will be marked up by a House committee tomorrow.

S. 1297 is co-sponsored on the Republican side by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and fellow presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) along with freshman Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO).   Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and freshman Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) represent the Democrats.  Cruz chairs the Space, Science and Competitiveness subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.  Peters is the top Democrat (ranking member) on that panel.  Nelson is the ranking member of the full committee. Cruz, Rubio, Nelson and Gardner are from States with strong government and commercial space sectors.

Entitled the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, S. 1297 would extend the “learning period” for commercial human spaceflight, as well as the FAA’s authority to provide third-party indemnification to U.S. launch services providers, to 2020.  The learning period refers to a span of years when the FAA is not allowed to promulgate new regulations governing commercial human spaceflight that might stifle that industry’s growth as it gains experience.  The indemnification provision means that the government would pay for certain amounts of damages to uninvolved individuals in the event of a launch accident (the commercial companies must purchase insurance to cover other amounts).  The government has had Indemnification authority for commercial launches since 1988, but Congress extends it for set periods of time rather than permanently so it can periodically review whether it is still needed.

Those provisions are different from legislation that will be marked up by the House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow.  That committee is set to debate four commercial space bills, one of which — the SPACE Act, sponsored by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) — is also intended to update CSLA.  The House and Senate bills are different in many ways.

The House bill would extend the learning period and third-party indemnification through 2025 rather than 2020.  It addresses a range of other issues including space traffic management and a sense of Congress statement that States should take proper measures to secure their investments in space launch facilities.

The Senate bill does not discuss either of those issues, but commits the United States to continued operation and utilization of ISS, which is not addressed in the House bill.  S. 1297 would enact into law a U.S. commitment to ISS operations through at least 2024, instead of at least 2020 as stated in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act.  The White House announced over a year ago that it plans to continue ISS operations through 2024, but that is not codified in law yet. 

The Senate bill also calls on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to determine what federal agenc(ies) should oversee various aspects of the commercial utilization of space, and for the FAA to streamline approval of licenses and permits for hybrid vehicles that currently must deal with two separate FAA offices.

S. 1297 also includes language requiring the Secretary of Transportation
in consultation with the Secretary of Defense and others to submit a
study on the feasibility of releasing “safety-related space situational
awareness [SSA] data and information.”  DOD’s willingness (or lack
thereof) to release certain SSA data on the locations of U.S. and other
satellites to commercial space operators is a long-running debate. 
While SSA is part of space traffic management, the provisions in the
House and Senate bills seem only tangentially related to each other.

There are similarities, though.  Both bills add and define “government astronaut” as a type of individual who might be aboard a commercial human space flight, encourage industry to develop voluntary standards for commercial human spaceflight, smooth the process for moving from experimental permit to a license, and encourage the FAA to update how it calculates “maximum probable loss” in determining how much insurance commercial launch services companies must purchase.

The House and Senate bills both are very broad and include many other provisions.

The Senate Commerce Committee has not announced a date to mark up S. 1297.  Cruz held a hearing on commercial space issues on February 25 and he has stated several times that updating CSLA is his first priority as subcommittee chairman. 

Editor’s Note: the original version of this article said the House bill extends third party indemnification and the learning period to 2023, but it is 2025.  As introduced, it was 2023, but it was amended during committee markup to 2025.