An irony is playing out here over the U.S. government's fiscal 2015 budget: Not since the last recession ended has there been such widespread acknowledgement in Washington of where federal spending is headed, thanks to the so-called Ryan-Murray budget deal in December and 2014 appropriations, which became law Jan. 17. But Congress increasingly will be unable to do anything about it as 2014 continues.
When it comes to the fiscal 2015 budget request from the Obama administration, if you like your current major aerospace and defense program, you can keep it—for now. With the politically charged nature of final 2014 appropriations and their late-cycle passage Jan. 17, and next month's release of the 2015 request and accompanying long-term budget blueprint, more than the usual high-level information is already known about the White House's formal request as far as 2018.
To paraphrase an old joke, everybody likes to monitor weather from space, but nobody does anything about it. Now comes a Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher with training in aeronautical engineering and atmospheric science, pushing a $3 million experiment to determine if jet engines on the ground can generate enough updraft to start rainfall in drought-stricken areas.
BEIJING — The rover of China’s Chang’e 3 lunar mission is showing signs of life after almost being declared dead. Jade Rabbit, as the rover is known, is again receiving signals from the Earth, Chinese media report.
NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft, already the longest-working spacecraft ever dispatched to the red planet, is maneuvering to take on a new task: global observations of seasonal variations in fog, clouds and surface frost in the thin atmosphere after sunrise. What’s more, the solar-powered spacecraft, launched in April 2001 as a $297 million, three-year mission, is forecast to function for another decade or so serving as a communications relay for other Mars spacecraft, just as it did for the Curiosity rover’s dramatic August 2012 landing.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded a €60 million ($82 million) contract to Ariane 5 prime contractor Airbus Defense and Space to continue definition and feasibility studies this year for Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 launcher. The Phase B1 studies will “pinpoint the detailed architecture developed so far and consolidate the launcher’s main characteristics,” the company—formerly EADS-Astrium—said in a Feb. 12 news release. The results of these studies will be unveiled in November during an ESA System Requirements Review (SRR) of the Ariane 6.
HOUSTON — The first of Planet Labs’ 28-strong fleet of Earth observing CubeSats leaped into orbit from the International Space Station’s spring-loaded deployer mechanism early Feb. 11. The first four of the San Francisco-based Planet Labs’ Dove Sats emerged from the launcher outside the orbiting science laboratory’s Japanese Kibo module in pairs at 3:32 a.m. and 7:41 a.m. EST.
NASA and French space agency CNES have formalized a cooperative agreement on the primary instrument that will fly aboard the U.S.-led InSight mission to Mars. As NASA’s 12th Discovery mission, the $425 million InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) aims to land a sophisticated geophysical observatory on the surface of Mars to study its structure and composition.
U.S. commercial remote sensing services provider Skybox Imaging has awarded Space Systems/Loral (SSL) of Palo Alto, Calif., a contract to build an advanced constellation of small Earth observation satellites for operation in low Earth orbit.
PARIS — A combination of new competition from U.S.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and an unfavorable euro-dollar exchange rate means European governments may need to increase subsidies for operations of the Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle at Europe’s Guiana Space Center (CSG) in Kourou, French Guiana.
NASA I.T.: NASA’s Inspector General (IG) is faulting a $2.5 billion, four-year agency effort with HP Enterprise Services to transition computer support from a field center-based framework to organization-wide oversight. Now at its mid-point, the effort has led to difficulties with IT security and timely software patches, according to a recent audit. NASA IG Paul Martin urges careful consideration by NASA before exercising a three-year extension of the November 2011 HP contract.
Merging commercial human spaceflight missions into the air traffic control (ATC) system is a growing concern within the nascent industry and the government bureaucracies that ultimately will be responsible for regulating it, particularly as the industry approaches sending its first passengers to space.
Astronomers and engineers are looking to September for a flight demonstration of NASA hardware that could deliver “arc second” precision pointing and stability suitable for planetary observations using instrumentation suspended from high-altitude balloons.
Sixteen CubeSats carrying a range of engineering, science and educational projects developed by U.S. universities, nonprofits and NASA field centers are eligible for secondary payload flight assignments in 2015 through 2017, under the latest round of NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative selections.
U.S. Army Sauer Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., was awarded a $56,038,640 contract to build an operational readiness training complex at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif. Fiscal 2014 military construction funds in the amount of $56,038,640 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is April 30, 2016. Bids were solicited via the Internet with 22 received. Work will be performed at Fort Hunter Liggett. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville, Ky., is the contracting activity (W912QR-14-C-0006).
Merging commercial human spaceflight missions into the air traffic control (ATC) system is a growing concern within the nascent industry and the government bureaucracies that ultimately will be responsible for regulating it, particularly as the industry approaches sending its first passengers to space.
KEPLER LAUDED: NASA’s exo-planet hunting Kepler space telescope mission has won the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy for 2014, the Washington-based non profit National Space Club announced Feb. 6. The mission will be honored in ceremonies March 7 at the Hilton Washington Hotel for its advances in astrophysics and the search for worlds beyond the Solar System. Since its launch on March 6, 2009, the spacecraft is credited with identifying more than 3,600 exo-planet candidates, 246 of them confirmed so far.
Canada’s Conservative government plans to continue promoting the nation’s space industry, focusing on the technology niches where it excels and looking for new ones, but with a shift toward more commercial partnerships in step with the U.S. shift in that direction.
