Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next TWO weeks, November 24-December 7, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions. The Senate returns on December 2; the House on December 3.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today released the full text of its decision on Blue Origin’s protest of the Air Force’s procurement of launch services for contracts to be awarded beginning next year. A letter summarizing the decision was released on Monday, but the full report goes into more detail about why GAO sustained one part of the protest, but denied others.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for November 21, 2019: Hyten moves to JCS, Richard takes over USSTRATCOM; Myers withdraws nomination for NOAA; AF to modify launch RFP per GAO. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
A SpaceX Starship prototype literally blew its top today in Boca Chica, TX while propellant was being loaded for a tanking test. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk had said earlier that the vehicle would fly to an altitude of 20 kilometers sometime this fall, but after today’s incident downplayed its importance in Starship’s development. He said he will simply move on to the next prototype iteration.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for November 19, 2019: Blue Origin wins favorable GAO decision on AF launch procurement; NASA ISS advisory committee highlights top concerns. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
NASA announced five additional companies for its pool of providers for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program today. Among them is SpaceX whose President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, says it hopes to land a cargo version of Starship on the lunar surface in 2022. Much attention is focused on when Starship will send astronauts to the Moon or Mars, but Shotwell made clear today they want to get a lot of experience with the cargo version first.
Boeing issued a strongly worded defense of its work on NASA’s commercial crew program today following a blistering report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) last week. The company disputes many aspects of the OIG report, including its calculation of how much NASA is paying to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) on its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft.
The head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate hinted today that more delays may be in the offing for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While progress is being made integrating the spacecraft and its instruments at prime contractor Northrop Grumman, Thomas Zurbuchen is worried about the time it is taking and an agency-level assessment is underway to determine whether the March 2021 launch date is realistic.
The NASA Advisory Council (NAC) recently adopted a set of eight principles for the extraction and utilization of extraterrestrial resources. Developed by NAC’s Regulatory and Policy Committee (RPC), they are headed to the Administrator’s office where they will be received by a familiar face. Mike Gold, who chaired the RPC, is joining NASA as a special advisor to the Administrator tomorrow and hopes to shepherd the principles along to a wider audience both domestically and internationally.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 17-23, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House is in session Tuesday-Thursday. The Senate is scheduled to be in session all week.