News NASA's Future: The News and Updates Thread

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Florida Today - The Flame Trench:

• Politics: NASA expected to get at least same funding as last year

NASA:

• NASA Selects Small Business Research And Tech Projects
• NASA And German Aerospace Center Sign Civil Space Agreements

 

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The Huntsville Times: House passes NASA budget, gives $169 million more to heavy-lift.

Florida Today: $18.9 billion: House OKs a modest raise for NASA.

Space News: House-passed Spending Bill Includes More Money for NASA and Weather Satellites.

 

[2552]

NASASpaceFlight.com: HEFT: Space Launch System HLV design decision likely by April, 2011

 

[Kyle]

Starting to look like April 2011 will be a pretty eventful month for the space program. COTS 2, STS-134, HLV, ect. Guess its appropriate it all goes down on the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin and the 30th anniversary of STS-1.

 

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Florida Today - The Flame Trench: Senate releases draft omnibus bill language for NASA:

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The agreement provides $18.9 billion for NASA, $186 million above the Fiscal Year 2010 level and $90 million less than the President’s request.

The total funding includes $989.1 million for base Space Shuttle operations; $2.7 billion for Space Station operations; $825 million for an additional Shuttle flight, if determined to be safe, and for launch infrastructure for the heavy lift rocket; $3 billion for development of the Orion multipurpose crew vehicle and the heavy lift launch vehicle; $5 billion for science; $580 million for aeronautics; and $559 million for space and exploration technology research.

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And for interested:

• Summary FY2011 Omnibus CJS Appropriations (PDF - 5 pages) [For NASA on pages 2-3]
• FY 2011 Omnibus Appropriations Act Full Text (PDF - 1924 pages) [For NASA starting on page 184]

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Here's the CCDev2 proposals. Some very interesting new spacecraft! :thumbup:

Boeing Submits Proposal for 2nd Round of NASA Commercial Crew Development Program.

Orbital Submits Proposal for NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program.

Virgin Galactic to Join NASA Submissions for Orbital Spaceflights.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Space News: "Virgin Galactic Announces CCDev Partnerships with Orbital and Sierra Nevada".

Spaceflight Now: "Virgin Galactic aims for orbit".

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Spaceflight Now: "'Human-rating' document hits the Web with new name".

 

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Space News: Rising Costs Cloud Future of NASA Planetary Program:

SAN FRANCISCO — While 2011 is expected to be a banner year for NASA’s planetary science program with three missions scheduled for launch, future initiatives are threatened by budget uncertainties and a dramatic spike in the price of launch vehicles, according to an agency official.

“This is a really difficult financial environment,” Jim Green, NASA’s director of planetary science, said Dec. 15 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union here.

Rides into orbit for NASA’s 2011 planetary missions, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the Juno mission to Jupiter and the Moon-bound Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), were purchased under the first NASA Launch Services (NLS) contract. That contract, which does not include specific quantities of rockets to be purchased or delivery dates, sets prices for launch vehicles and related services for NASA’s planetary, Earth observing, exploration and scientific satellites.

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“We are surprised at how extensive those cost increases are,” he said. “You start to wonder where we go from here. How do we get out of low-Earth orbit on a regular basis?”

NASA planetary missions typically are launched aboard Atlas 5 and Delta 2 rockets built by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture. The Delta 2 has been phased out of production, however, and only a few vehicles remain available.

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At the same time, NASA’s future planning efforts are being hindered by the current congressional budget impasse. The space agency’s 2011 budget, like that of the other U.S. government agencies, will not be set until the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives agree on a spending plan. The House passed a continuing resolution Dec. 8, which freezes 2011 discretionary spending at 2010 levels but gives NASA a $186 million funding boost. Senate leaders, meanwhile, have proposed a catchall spending package that would provide a similar increase, but there are some in the upper chamber who are pushing for a short-term measure that funds the government for only part of 2011 at 2010 spending rates.

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One element of the 2011 budget plan welcomed by NASA officials is a provision to restart production of plutonium-238, a radioactive isotope that NASA uses to produce long-lasting spacecraft batteries for deep space missions. NASA and the White House lobbied Congress unsuccessfully for funds to resume U.S. production of Pu-238 in the 2010 budget. However, the NASA Authorization Act signed into law in October directs NASA to work with the U.S. Department of Energy to restart Pu-238 production, and the appropriations bill proposed in the Senate includes funding for the effort.

“This is really tremendous news,” Green said. “This is very, very, very important to us.”

 

[Wishbone]

Would agree to Pu-238 if the Senate ratified the treaty...

 

[Star Voyager]

Here's some relief to the Cape's economy:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article.../Businesses+pitch+their+space+plane+proposals

 

[Star Voyager]

This is a MUST see:

http://www.floridatoday.com/section/news0206

 

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NASA: NASA Selects Companies for Further Lunar Demonstrations Data

The Space Review: Rocket to nowhere.

 

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Florida Today: No extra funds for NASA:

WASHINGTON — NASA wouldn't receive the extra funding anticipated for the first year of its new policy, under a spending bill awaiting approval in Congress.

But Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the space agency should be able to accomplish its goals of launching a third shuttle mission in 2011 and supporting commercial rocket development, despite losing the extra funding, at least temporarily.

The Senate was expected to consider today a spending bill that largely holds funding steady for most agencies until March 4. The House would then rubber-stamp that measure, leaving major spending decisions for the next Congress.

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Space News:

• Senate Approves Stopgap Spending Bill:

  WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate adopted a temporary spending bill Dec. 21 that would keep the government funded at 2010 levels through March 4. The stopgap appropriation now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration before the current continuing resolution under which the government is operating expires at midnight.
  
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• NASA Might Merge Human Spaceflight, Operations Directorates:

  WASHINGTON — NASA is considering a plan to merge its space operations and human spaceflight mission directorates to better align with the U.S. space agency’s manned spaceflight goals, according to NASA officials.
  
  In a Dec. 20 memo to agency employees, the heads of NASA’s Exploration Systems and Space Operations mission directorates said they had been tasked by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to formulate a plan for combining the two organizations and report back to the agency chief in early 2011.
  
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Spaceflight Now: Congress freezes NASA's budget until March:

Unable to pass an annual spending bill in this legislative session, the U.S. Congress approved a temporary government funding measure Tuesday, cutting nearly $300 million from NASA's expected budget and potentially limiting action on new space exploration programs.

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[N_Molson]

That's really sad...

 

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Space News: Obama Signs Short-term Funding Bill:

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 22 signed into law a short-term appropriations bill that will keep the federal government, including NASA, funded at 2010 spending levels through March 4, according to a White House news release.

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[Star Voyager]

This is very touching:

http://www.floridatoday.com/article...ews02/Monument+to+honor+space+shuttle+workers

 

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Orlando Sentinel: NASA's Ares rocket dead, but Congress lets you pay $500 million more for it:

WASHINGTON — Thanks to congressional inaction, NASA must continue to fund its defunct Ares I rocket program until March — a requirement that will cost the agency nearly $500 million at a time when NASA is struggling with the expensive task of replacing the space shuttle.

About one-third that money — $165 million — will go to Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, which has a $2 billion contract to build the solid-rocket first stage for the Ares I, the rocket that was supposed to fill the shuttle's role of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station.

But under a new NASA plan signed into law by President Barack Obama in October, there's no guarantee that the new rocket required by that plan will use solid-fuel propulsion. And, in fact, many in the agency say a liquid-fueled rocket would be cheaper, more powerful — and safer.

The money to ATK is part of the $1.2 billion NASA will spend on its canceled Constellation program from Oct. 1 through March. Most of the rest will go to Lockheed Martin, which is building the Orion capsule intended to take astronauts into space aboard whatever rocket NASA selects. That program was largely spared by the new NASA plan.

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Space Travel: NASA must fund canceled rocket program.