The Senate rejected the House-passed Continuing Resolution (CR) Friday evening and government funding lapsed as midnight arrived. Sixty votes were needed for passage. The vote was 50-49. Agencies funded through appropriations must proceed to shut down operations that are not essential or meet other requirements to continue.
Here are our tidbits for January 18, 2018: shutdown update; Mike Griffin’s confirmation hearing for USD/R&E. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted again today on the nominations of Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) to be NASA Administrator and AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers to be NOAA Administrator. Like last year, they were approved on party-line votes, 14-13. The next step is for the full Senate to consider the nominations. That did not happen last year because both are controversial, which is why President Trump had to renominate them, necessitating today’s committee action.
At a hearing today on NASA’s commercial crew program, committee members could not resist asking SpaceX’s representative about the super secret Zuma mission that apparently failed earlier this month. SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann reiterated that the Falcon 9 performed as planned and took issue with statements made in a recent Loren Thompson commentary critical of SpaceX.
The Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew systems are not likely to be certified until late 2019 or early 2020 according to testimony to Congress today from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). That could imperil U.S. access to the International Space Station (ISS) since NASA has purchased seats to fly on Russian Soyuz spacecraft only through 2019. NASA said it is “brainstorming” ideas on what to do if the contracted Soyuz flights end before the commercial crew systems are ready. Everyone at the hearing agreed that safety, not schedule, should drive the program, however.
Here are our tidbits for January 16, 2018: will Congress pass a new CR to avoid a government shutdown?; Falcon Heavy update; NASA tests SLS engine. 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 our list of space policy events for the week of January 15-19, 2018 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate will be in session beginning Tuesday. [Updated January 15.]
In advance of a congressional hearing next week on the status of the commercial crew program, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) has released new dates for when Boeing and SpaceX will conduct flight tests of their CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft. All the tests will still take place this year according to the new schedule, but SpaceX’s have slipped several months.
Here are our tidbits for January 11, 2018: NASA IG concludes CASIS is underperforming; successful glide flight test of SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity; update on China’s Chang’e-4 lunar far-side lander. Be sure to check our website for feature stories and follow us on Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) for more news and live tweeting of events.
NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) issued its annual report today. NASA is at a critical juncture in human space flight development, it says, repeating a warning from previous years that “constancy of purpose” at NASA is essential in order to avoid negative impacts on cost, schedule, performance, morale, process discipline, and safety.