What's Happening in Space Policy June 27-July 1, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of June 27 – July 1, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate is in session part of the week. The House is in recess for the July 4 holiday.

During the Week

The House left town early last week in disarray after Democrats staged a gun control sit-in. It already was scheduled to be off this week and will return on July 5.  The Senate is taking only a short July 4th breather.  It will be in session Monday-Thursday and return on July 6. On Monday it will resume consideration of the FY2017 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill that includes NASA and NOAA.  Both chambers will meet the first two weeks of July and then take a 7-week recess for the political conventions and their usual August recess, returning on September 5-6.  They don’t have a lot of time to get appropriations bills completed before the fiscal year ends on September 30.

Orbital ATK will have the second and final qualification test for the solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System on Tuesday at its Promontory, Utah test site.  NASA TV will cover the 2-minute test live and a media teleconference shortly thereafter will be available on NASA’s News Audio site.

Up at the International Space Station (ISS), Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Skripochka will test out a new manual docking system for Russia’s Progress cargo spacecraft on Friday (VERY early Eastern Daylight Time).  Progress MS-01 (Progress 62 in NASA parlance) is currently docked to the Pirs module.  It will undock and then be redocked using the manual system, a backup in case the automated Kurs system doesn’t work properly.  The Progress MS series is the latest version of that cargo spacecraft, in use since 1978, and Russia is also getting ready to launch the first Soyuz MS, the latest variant of that spacecraft.  The first Soyuz was launched in 1967. The Soyuz MS-01 launch is now scheduled for July 6 EDT (July 7 local time at the launch site) after a delay reportedly related to its new Kurs system.  The Kurs system for Progress MS and Soyuz MS is the same and the NASA press release said the test would verify software and a new signal converter for the manual docking system “in the unlikely event the ‘Kurs’ automated rendezvous in either craft encounters a problem.”   Progress MS-01 will undock for a final time on July 2 and reenter (burning up on the way down — SpaceX’s Dragon is the only ISS cargo spacecraft designed to survive reentry).

NASA’s Juno spacecraft is getting closer and closer to Jupiter, with orbital insertion next Monday (July 4).  There will be three briefings that day, but two pre-arrival briefings will be held this Thursday at JPL.  They will be webcast.

Thursday also is Asteroid Day, “a global awareness campaign” with events around the world to learn about asteroids “and what we can do to protect our planet …”   It is an independent effort founded by Britain’s Brian May (the Queen guitarist and astrophysicist), B612’s Danica Remy and Rusty Schweickert, and film director Grigorij Richters and with support from the European Space Agency (ESA).  Thursday is June 30, the anniversary of the 1908 Tunguska (Russia) event, the most destructive meteor airburst of modern times.

To close out the week, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC is celebrating its 40th anniversary and has invited the public to a family friendly “All Night at the Museum” from 9:00 pm Friday to 10:00 am Saturday with special guests stopping by, all night films and lots of other fun activities.  The official re-opening of the renovated Boeing Milestones of Flight gallery is at 8:30 pm ET.  That and other Friday evening activities will be covered by C-SPAN.

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

Tuesday, June 28

• Orbital ATK Booster Test, Promontory, Utah, 10:05 am ET (8:05 am local time); NASA TV coverage begins 9:30 am ET
• NASA Media telecon on Orbital ATK Test, 11:00 am ET (listen on NASA’s News Audio site)

Tuesday-Wednesday, June 28-29

• MilSatCom USA, Sheraton Pentagon City, Arllngton, VA

Tuesday-Thursday, June 28-30

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Big Data Task Force, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
• NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), JHU Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD

Wednesday, June 29

• NAC Ad Hoc STEM Task Force, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm ET (WebEx/telecon)

Thursday, June 30

• Asteroid Day, various times and locations around the world
• Juno Spacecraft Arrival at Juno — Pre-Arrival Briefings, JPL, Pasadena, CA, 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm ET (webcast)

Friday, July 1

• Test of New Progress Docking System at the ISS, Earth Orbit, undocking 1:36 am ET, redocking 2:10 am ET (NASA TV coverage begins 1:15 am ET)
• C-SPAN Coverage of 40th Anniversary Events at the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, 6:00-9:00 pm ET

Friday-Saturday, July 1-2

• All Night at the Museum, National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC (family friendly event to spend the night there in celebration of its 40th anniversary), 9:00 pm – 10:00 am ET