Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for May 3, 2018: Wilbur Ross expects gas stations on the Moon — soon; more problems for JWST. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
NASA said today that it cancelled the Resource Prospector (RP) mission because it no longer is a good fit with its lunar exploration plans. Some of the instruments planned for RP, which dates back to the George W. Bush Administration, will still fly, but on commercial landers. Lunar scientists are dismayed by the decision, characterizing RP as a pathfinder for more capable prospecting landers to locate and mine water ice to support human exploration.
Huntsville-based LSINC has hired former Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot as its new President. LSINC is a woman-owned small business that provides product development, engineering, strategy and strategic communications, and intelligence and security services to commercial and government clients.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for May 1, 2018: President Trump still wants a Space Force; Jeff Bezos says first humans on New Shepard soon, but no tickets yet. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its 10th annual assessment of NASA’s major projects today. It found that cost and schedule performance for NASA’s portfolio of major projects has deteriorated since last year and the average launch delays for projects in the portfolio are the highest since GAO began these assessments a decade ago. In response, NASA said that looking over a longer period of time NASA’s cost and schedule performance has improved markedly since it instituted the Joint Cost and Confidence Level (JCL) policy in 2009.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for April 30, 2018: Pence visits JPL, and more about that SpaceX-NOAA remote sensing license kerfuffle. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Scott Pace, Executive Secretary of the White House National Space Council, said today that the Space Traffic Management (STM) policy Vice President Mike Pence spoke about earlier this month is now on the President’s desk awaiting action. The need for an STM policy is being driven by the expected dramatic increase in space objects as companies like OneWeb and SpaceX launch constellations of hundreds or thousands of small communications satellites. The growth in satellite services is also posing spectrum allocation issues that must be resolved.
Here are SpacePolicyOnline.com’s tidbits for April 29, 2018: Blue Origin reaches new heights; NASA’s Inspector General cites commercial cargo cost increases; John Elbon’s new job. 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 April 29-May 5, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess (except for pro forma sessions).
NASA’s Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), the first launch of a crew on the new Space Launch System (SLS), is being revised now that NASA has permission to build a second Mobile Launch Platform (MLP) and has reassessed the costs of human-rating the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier said today that the idea now is to launch EM-2 on the initial version of SLS with ICPS, not the upgraded design with the more capable Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), and to move EM-2 forward in time. Using the less capable ICPS means changing what EM-2 will do, however.