Dynetics confirms that it is one of the companies bidding for a NASA Human Landing System (HLS) contract to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024. The news broke last week during a Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) media teleconference where a SNC representative disclosed that SNC is teaming with Dynetics on the proposal.
NASA and SpaceX confirmed today that the In-Flight Abort test for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will take place on Saturday, January 18. The four-hour launch window opens at 8:00 am ET. The test is a critical milestone towards Demo-2, the crewed flight test of SpaceX’s commercial crew system to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 12-18, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is on track for the first cargo flight of its Dream Chaser spacecraft next year. Looking like a small space shuttle, Dream Chaser lost out on a contract for NASA’s commercial crew program, but was selected in the second round of commercial cargo contracts. SNC still plans to use Dream Chaser for crewed missions for other customers and expects the first within 5 years. SNC also is bidding on contracts for NASA’s Artemis program, including as part of a Dynetics team for the Human Landing System.
The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee approved a space weather bill this morning at its first meeting in the 2nd session of the 116th Congress. The Senate Commerce Committee approved its own version in April 2019, but filed a report on the bill only in December. Coupled with a significant boost in NOAA’s budget for a Space Weather Follow-On program in the FY2020 appropriations bill, it could be that after several years of trying, a space weather bill may finally clear Congress.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced today that an independent team is being set up by NASA and Boeing to determine the root cause of what went wrong with the Mission Elapsed Timer on Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test (OFT) last month. The failure prevented Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule from fulfilling all of its objectives, notably conducting rendezvous and docking operations with the International Space Station (ISS). The team’s report will help determine whether a second OFT is needed before NASA agrees to put astronauts aboard Starliner.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 5-11, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week. [UPDATED: THE CSIS EVENT ON THURSDAY WITH NASA ADMINISTRATOR BRIDENSTINE HAS BEEN POSTPONED AS HAS THE SPACEX IN-FLIGHT ABORT TEST]
Congressional appropriators gave NOAA a significant boost for its development of sensors to help forecast space weather events. The final Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill includes $64 million for the Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO), more than twice the request.
Four astronauts from India will begin training in Russia this month according to the head of India’s space agency. India has not officially said when the first crewed mission will take place, but India’s Prime Minister set a goal of 2022 and an uncrewed test flight is planned this year. India also has approved sending another lander/rover to the Moon to complete the tasks unfilled by Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next TWO weeks, December 29, 2019-January 11, 2020. The Senate begins the second session of the 116th Congress this Friday, January 3. The House resumes work on Tuesday, January 7.