Here is our list of space policy events for the week of April 8-14, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate and House return to work this week — the Senate on Monday, the House on Tuesday — after their two-week spring break.
The Independent Review Board (IRB) chaired by Tom Young to provide NASA with an outside assessment of the status of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) held its first meeting this week at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. The 10-member panel will spend the next eight weeks evaluating the program to help NASA determine if JWST can meet its most recently revised launch schedule of May 2020.
Here are our tidbits for April 5, 2018: first powered flight for Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity; Lunar XPRIZE seeks new title sponsor; 87 countries agree on space sustainability guidelines. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
NASA revealed today that it has modified its commercial crew contract with Boeing to provide “flexibility” to use the crew flight test of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner system essentially as an operational mission. Instead of two crew members there could be three and a six-month mission instead of two weeks.
Former NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan has been selected by the Smithsonian Institution to be the new Director of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM). She succeeds Jack Dailey, who led the museum for 18 years and retired in January. Stofan will take over the reins on April 30.
Here are our tidbits for April 3, 2018: SpaceX/NOAA mystery solved; meet James Uthmeier, the Department of Commerce’s “regulatory reform officer.” Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
Jeffrey DeWit has officially reported for duty as NASA’s new Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He is the first Senate-confirmed Trump appointee at the agency, almost 15 months after the Trump Administration entered office.
Here are our tidbits for April 2, 2018: SpaceX sends another cargo mission to ISS with “flight proven” hardware; China shows off new space station as Tiangong-1 reenters; George Nield wins AIAA’s Public Service award. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
China’s Tiangong-1 space station reentered this evening Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), apparently harmlessly, over the Pacific Ocean.
Here is our list of space policy events for the week of April 1-6, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are on spring break (except for pro forma sessions) and will return the week of April 9.