Congressional committees that oversee U.S. space activities are taking the first formal steps to get to work for the 116th Congress. Today, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) announced the Chairs and Ranking Members of its subcommittees and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee released its membership roster.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for January 22, 2019: NASA makes crew change for Boeing Starliner test flight; Blue Origin ready to try again tomorrow; aerospace industry coalition urges end to shutdown. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for January 21, 2019: shutdown impacts on NASA; U.S.-China space cooperation; Myers renominated for NOAA. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 20-26, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate will be in session at least part of the week.
The House is passing FY2019 appropriations bills to reopen government agencies like NASA and NOAA and end the partial government shutdown. Next week it plans to take up the compromise version of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that funds NASA and NOAA as part of broader legislation. This version would fund NASA at $21.500 billion for FY2019 and warns NASA that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is not an entitlement program. NOAA’s satellite programs would get $1.455 billion.
President Trump’s speech today at the Pentagon to release DOD’s new Missile Defense Review (MDR) conjured memories of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or “Star Wars.” The MDR calls not only for better space-based sensors to support ground-based missile defenses as expected, but restores Reagan’s vision of space-based interceptors.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 13-19, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are scheduled to be in session this week.
SpaceX revealed that it plans to layoff 10 percent of its workforce. The January 11 announcement came just hours after the company’s first launch of the year — 10 Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Force Base, CA.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lofted the final 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into orbit today from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The launch completes a new constellation of 75 Iridium communications satellites and signals an expansion of Iridium services into broadband. The satellites also carry Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) payloads for Aireon’s air traffic global surveillance system. This was the eighth SpaceX launch for Iridium over two years.
China released a panoramic view of the far side of the Moon today taken by its Chang’e-4 spacecraft. Chang’e-4 is the first spacecraft to land on the lunar farside. While orbiting spacecraft from several countries have taken thousands of images, this is the first panorama from the surface.