NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) reiterated today that it views the Green Run test for the Space Launch System (SLS) as “critical” from a safety and mission assurance standpoint.  NASA continues to debate whether the test can be skipped to speed up the program and get the first launch off the pad in 2020.  The head of NASA’s human spaceflight program said last week that NASA’s internal recommendation is to do the test, but a decision has not been made.

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A new analysis by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) calls into question claims about the size of the “space economy” today and projections for the future.  Trump Administration officials routinely cite forecasts of a “trillion dollar space economy” that are supported by reports from well known financial institutions, but STPI concludes they involve methodological mistakes or misunderstandings about the space business that result in overstating the value of commercial space activities. …

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The Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC’s) nomination hearing this morning was a friendly affair.  Chris Scolese, nominee to be the next Director of the National Reconnaissance Office, and Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, nominee to be Commander of U.S. Space Command and remain as Commander of Air Force Space Command, assured the committee that the organizations will continue to have strong working relationships under their leadership.

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Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for June 3, 2019: HASC subcommittee draft silent on Space Force; NRO awards three commercial imagery study contracts; WFIRST still on track for mid-2020s launch. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 2-8, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate will be in legislative session for part of the week.

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NASA has awarded fixed price contracts to three companies to deliver NASA payloads to the lunar surface.  These service contracts are part of the agency’s shift to purchasing commercial services instead of building new spacecraft itself in order to move quickly, save money, and stimulate commercial activity in space.  The missions will take place in 2020 and 2021.

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Just as NASA is trying to win support for its Artemis Moon-by-2024 program, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO’s) annual assessment of the agency’s programs concludes that cost and schedule performance “continues to deteriorate.”  It attributes the decline largely to problems with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft.  The average launch delay across NASA’s major programs represents the largest schedule delay since GAO began this series of reports in 2009. …

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NASA’s Inspector General (IG) warned today that the current launch dates for two missions to study Jupiter’s moon Europa are unrealistic despite the large sums of money allocated by Congress.  The Europa Clipper and Europa Lander missions are required by law to be launched in 2023 and 2025 on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), but that is unlikely to happen because of developmental and workforce challenges according to the IG report.

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SpaceX’s schedule for resuming its commercial crew test flights to the International Space Station (ISS) remains in flux as the investigation into the April anomaly that destroyed one of its Crew Dragon capsules continues.  The company is planning to have its next test vehicle ready by the end of the year, but NASA’s commercial crew program director said today a launch date cannot be set until the investigation is complete and other tests take place.

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NASA released brief summaries of 12 studies on the potential of commercial space stations in low Earth orbit (LEO) that it solicited last year.  While a NASA-written description portrayed the results as demonstrating profit-making potential in a variety of areas, a presentation by the deputy director of the International Space Station (ISS) program this morning painted a far more questionable outlook.

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