Boeing announced today that the uncrewed flight test of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew system to the International Space Station (ISS) has been delayed by two days. The eagerly anticipated Orbital Flight Test (OFT) is the company’s next major milestone before the vehicle can be used to take astronauts to and from the ISS.
The ministers of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) 22 member countries have agreed on plans for ESA’s future investments in space science, exploration, applications, and security. Among them are extending operations of the International Space Station (ISS) through 2030 — a goal expressed by NASA and some in Congress, but not yet established as policy — and cooperating with NASA on building a Gateway in lunar orbit. All in all, they approved the largest ESA budget ever: €14.4 billion (about $15.9 billion) over 5 years.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of December 1-7, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
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.