OrbitBeyond, Inc. (OBI), one of three companies selected by NASA for a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract, has notified NASA that it cannot meet its promised deadline of landing on the Moon by September 2020. NASA announced today that the company “requested to be released” from its contract and the agency agreed. The other two companies apparently are still working toward their deadlines of July 2021.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of July 28-August 3, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House has begun its 6-week “August recess” and will return for legislative business on September 9 (pro forma sessions are scheduled throughout that period). The Senate will be in session for at least part of this week before taking its own recess until September 4.
Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) President Eric Stallmer minced no words at a congressional hearing today slamming new proposed regulations for the commercial space transportation industry. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is under White House direction to modernize its regulations to be more business-friendly. FAA released the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for comment in April and today Stallmer said the proposals “in some ways are worse than today’s obsolete rules.”
NASA announced today that yes, it will conduct a Green Run test of the Space Launch System (SLS). The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) and others have been urging NASA to conduct the test even though the process takes many months. NASA is anxious to get SLS flying so it can meet the White House’s directive to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024 and was considering skipping the test or performing an abbreviated version of it.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for July 25, 2019: House passes budget/debt limit deal; DOD nominations update (Hyten, Milley, Norquist); Dickson confirmed for FAA; another SpaceX reusability milestone. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Rep. José Serrano (D-NY) today made clear that although he supports the goal of returning astronauts to the Moon, he does not see a need to accelerate NASA’s efforts in order to meet a 2024 deadline. Calling the White House’s proposal to move up the date arbitrary, he expressed concern that spending the money to get to the Moon sooner would be detrimental to other programs across the government.
Mark Esper was confirmed by the Senate and sworn into office this afternoon as the nation’s new Secretary of Defense. A West Point graduate and Army veteran, Esper had been serving as Secretary of Army when he was tapped to become Acting Secretary of Defense in June and then the nominee to take the job permanently. He has not been particularly involved in space policy issues in the past, but based on answers he gave to the Senate as part the confirmation process, he supports creation of a Space Force, U.S. Space Command, and the Space Development Agency.
As the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, the first human landing on the Moon, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins decided to publish an interview with himself about his historic voyage to the Moon and the years since. It is republished here in its entirety with permission.
Chris Kraft, a legendary figure in the history of NASA’s human spaceflight program, died today at the age of 95. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and many others issued statements praising his service to the country and offering condolences to his family.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans and President Trump reached agreement today to raise budget caps for the next two fiscal years and suspend the debt limit until July 31, 2021. The deal still must pass the House and Senate and be signed into law, but congressional leaders of both parties and the President have issued statements of support this evening. It’s not over till it’s over, but if everyone sticks with the plan it would pave the way for passing FY2020 appropriations in a timely manner, which would be good news for civil and national security space programs, especially NASA’s Artemis Moon-by-2024 plan.