US AeroSpace: Policy & Politics [updates]

[Blue-Vision]

Well, well. Let's see how this pans out.

[Blue-Vision]

[EDIT] I needed to read the other posts further up. [/EDIT]

 

They caved in. Wow. Well, then. Guess ULA's little tantrum paid off.

 

McCain's gonna be ######, if he isn't already.

[FloatingFatMan]

Well, I'm really glad that congress is finally giving NASA the funding it needs, but less than amused that ULA are going to be able to get their crooked mitts on some of that money... Here's hoping McCain is able to stop them.

[TrevorLahey]

26 minutes ago, DocM said:

NEWS FLASH: Congress has fully funded Commercial Crew at $1.2438 billion!!

Was this part of that "news dump" of Paul Ryan's during the Republican debate last night?

[DocM]

Perhaps. I was watching the debate & may have missed it.

[Blue-Vision]

Just now, DocM said:

Perhaps. I was watching the debate & may have missed it.

Same, I was listening to it though, and the pre-debate. Graham scares the high holy hell out of me. Yikes. So does Fiorina. "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" .. ugh. "And while we're at it, let's take a sharp stick and poke Putin with it and start World War 3 ...". Meh.

[TrevorLahey]

3 minutes ago, DocM said:

Perhaps. I was watching the debate & may have missed it.

I just seen it in the news this morning.  A lot of people on this site may not like my source, but o well.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/12/16/masterful-news-dump-paul-ryan-makes-major-announcement-during-republican-debate/

[Draggendrop Veteran]

As per my upper post...Mr. McCains turn....

 

Full Text | McCain Blasts Appropriators for Lifting RD-180 Ban

 

Quote

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to the Senate floor Dec. 16 to blast the Senate Appropriations Committee for eliminating restrictions Congress imposed last year on the Pentagon’s use of Russian-built RD-180 rocket engines.

 

United Launch Alliance, whose workhorse Atlas 5 rocket is powered by the RD-180, cited the ban among its reasons for not bidding last month on a contract to launch a GPS-3 satellite for the U.S. Air Force.

 

McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the RD-180 provisions appropriators included in a must-pass omnibus spending bill released overnight violates Senate protocol and represents “a direct dismembering” of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which provided more-limited relief from the RD-180 ban.

 

Below are his prepared remarks:

 

I rise to call attention to the triumph of pork barrel parochialism in this year’s Omnibus Appropriations Bill—in particular, a policy provision that was airdropped into this bill, in direct contravention to the National Defense Authorization Act, which will have U.S. taxpayers subsidize Russian aggression and “comrade capitalism.”

 

Nearly two years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin, furious that the Ukrainian people had ousted a pro-Moscow stooge, invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. It was the first time since the days of Hitler and Stalin that brute force had been projected across an internationally-recognized border to dismember a sovereign state on the European continent. More than 8,000 people have died in this conflict, including 298 innocent people aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, who were murdered by Vladimir Putin’s loyal supporters with weapons he supplied them.

 

Putin’s imperialist campaign in Eastern Europe forced a recognition, for anyone who was not yet convinced, that we are confronting a challenge that many had assumed was resigned to the history books: a strong, militarily-capable Russian government that is hostile to our interests and our values, and seeks to challenge the international order that American leaders of both parties have sought to maintain since the end of World War II.

 

That’s why the Congress imposed tough sanctions against Russia, especially against Putin’s cronies and their enormous, and enormously corrupt, business empire. As part of that effort, Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which restricted the Air Force from using Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines for national security space launches — engines that are manufactured by a Russian company controlled by some of Putin’s top cronies. We did so not only because our nation should not rely on Russia to access space, but because it is simply immoral to help subsidize Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and line the pockets of Putin’s gang of thugs who profit from the sale of Russian rocket engines.

 

Last year’s NDAA exempted the five of engines United Launch Alliance (ULA) purchased before the invasion of Ukraine. This allowed ULA, the space launch company that for years has enjoyed a monopoly on launching military satellites, to use those Russian rocket engines if the Secretary of Defense determined it was necessitated by national security.

 

Since the passage of the FY15 NDAA in the Senate, 89 to 11, Russia has continued to destabilize Ukraine and menace our NATO allies in Europe with aggressive military behavior. Putin has sent advanced weapons to Iran and violated the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Force Treaty. Now, in a profound echo of the Cold War, Russia has intervened militarily in Syria on behalf of the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. Clearly, Russian behavior has only gotten worse.

 

That is why, just a few weeks ago, Congress acted again, and passed the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA authorized $300 million dollars in security assistance and intelligence support for Ukraine to resist Russian aggression. At the same time, the bill recognized that a small number of Russian engines could be needed to maintain competition in the national security space launch program and facilitate a smooth transition to rockets with U.S. made engines. Therefore the legislation allowed ULA to use a total of nine Russian engines.

 

The FY16 NDAA, including its provision limiting the use of Russian rocket engines, was debated for months. The Committee on Armed Services had a vigorous debate over this important issue. An amendment was offered to maintain the restriction on the Air Force’s use of Russian rocket engines, and in a positive vote of the Committee, the amendment was adopted. We then considered hundreds of amendments to this defense authorization bill on the Senate floor over a period of two weeks, and did so transparently and with an open amendment process that was a credit to the Majority Leader. There was not one amendment called up to change the provision of the NDAA concerning RD-180 rocket engines. The legislation passed with 71 votes. Then, because of a misguided presidential veto, this defense legislation was actually considered a second time on the floor of the Senate, and this time it passed 91 to 3.

 

Here is my point: The Senate had this debate. We had ample time and opportunity to have this debate. And through months of this fulsome debate, no Senator came to the Senate floor to make the case that we need to buy more Russian rocket engines. No Senator introduced an amendment on the floor to lift the restriction on buying more Russian rocket engines. To the contrary, the Senate and the full Congress voted, overwhelmingly and repeatedly, to maintain this restriction. This is a policy issue, and it was resolved, as it should be, on the defense policy bill.

 

And yet, here we stand with a 2000-page omnibus appropriations bill, crafted in secret with no debate, which most of us are seeing for the first time this morning. And buried within it is a policy provision that would effectively allow unlimited purchases and use of Russian rocket engines.

 

What is going on here?

 

ULA wants more Russian engines. Plain and simple. That’s why ULA recently asked the Defense Department to waive the NDAA’s restriction on the basis of national security and let it use a Russian engine for the first competitive national security space launch. The Defense Department declined.

 

So, what did ULA do when it didn’t get its way? It manufactured a crisis. Though the Department of Defense is restricted in using these Russian rocket engines, there is no similar restriction on NASA or commercial space launches. So ULA rushed to assign the RD-180s that it had in its inventory to these non-national security launches, despite the fact that there is no restriction on the use of Russian engines for those launches. This artificial crisis has now been seized on by ULA’s Capitol Hill leading sponsors, namely the senior Senator from Alabama, Senator Shelby, and the senior Senator from Illinois, Senator Durbin, to overturn the NDAA’s restriction.

 

And that is exactly what they’ve done—again, secretly, non-transparently, as part of this massive Omnibus Appropriations bill. As I said, neither Senator Shelby nor Senator Durbin, nor any other Senator, raised objections to the provisions of the NDAA or offered any alternatives during the authorization process on the Senate floor.

 

In fact, as I have said, when this issue was debated and voted on in the Committee on Armed Services, the authorizing committee of jurisdiction voted in favor of maintaining the restriction. Instead, my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee crafted a provision in secret with no debate to overturn the will of the Senate as expressed in two National Defense Authorization Acts.And the result will enable a monopolistic corporation to send potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to Vladimir Putin and his corrupt cronies and deepen America’s reliance on these thugs for our military’s access to space.

 

This is outrageous. And it is shameful. And it is the height of hypocrisy, especially for my colleagues who claim to care about the plight of Ukraine and the need to punish Russia for its aggression. How can our government tell European governments that they need to hold the line on maintaining sanctions on Russia, which is far harder for them to do than us, when we are gutting our own policy in this way? How can we tell our French allies, in particular, that they should not sell Vladimir Putin amphibious assault ships, as we have, and then turn around and try to buy rocket engines from Putin’s cronies? Again, this is the height of hypocrisy.

 

Since March 2014, my colleagues and I in the in Senate have tried to do everything we can to give our friends in Ukraine the tools they need to defend themselves and their country from Russian aggression. Rather than furthering that noble cause, Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin have chosen to reward Vladimir Putin and his cronies with a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. A rocket factory in Alabama may benefit from this provision. Boeing, headquartered in Illinois, may benefit from this decision. But have no doubt, the real winners today are Vladimir Putin and his gang of thugs running the Russian military-industrial complex.

 

I wish that Senators Shelby and Durbin would explain to the American taxpayer exactly who we are doing business with. They won’t. But my colleagues need to know. So let me explain.

 

At least one news organization has investigated how much the Air Force pays for these RD-180 rocket engines, how much the Russians receive, and whether members of the elite in Putin’s Russia have secretly profited by inflating the price. In an investigative series entitled, “Comrade Capitalism”, Reuters exposed the role that senior Russian politicians and Putin’s close friends, including persons sanctioned over Ukraine, have played in a company called NPO Energomash, which manufactures the RD-180. According to Reuters, a Russian audit of that company found that it had been operating at a loss because funds were “being captured by unnamed offshore intermediary companies.”

In addition, the Reuters investigation also reported that NPO Energomash sells its rocket engines to ULA through another company called RD Amross, a tiny five-person outfit that stood to collect about $93 million in cost mark-ups under a multiyear deal to supply these engines. The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) found that in one contract alone, RD Amross did “no or negligible” work but still collected $80 million in “unallowable excessive pass-through charges.”

 

According to University of Baltimore School of Law Professor Charles Tiefer, who reviewed Reuters’ documents, “The bottom line is that the joint venture between the Russians and Americans is taking us to the cleaners.” He said that he had reviewed Pentagon audits critical of Iraq War contracts, but those “didn’t come anywhere near to how strongly negative” the RD Amross audit was.

 

We must do better than this, and we can.

 

Now some may say we need to buy rocket engines from Putin’s cronies in Russia. In particular, they will cite a letter from the Department of Defense in response to a list of leading questions form the Appropriations Committee just a few days ago, which they will claim as confirmation that the Department believes that the United States will not have a domestically-manufactured replacement engine for defense space launches before 2022.

 

Nonsense. When the Department of Defense starts making predictions beyond its five-year budget plan, what I hear is, “this isn’t a priority”. Or, “we don’t really know.” Either way, this is unacceptable. Both the authorizers and the appropriators have ramped-up funding for the development of a new domestically-manufactured engine. The Pentagon needs to do what it has failed to do for eight years: Make this a priority. Indeed, American companies have already said that they could have a replacement engine ready before 2022. Our money and attention should be focused on meeting this goal, not subsidizing Putin’s defense industry.

 

Proponents of more Russian rocket engines will also say cite claims by the Air Force that ULA needs a least 18 RD-180 engines to create a “bridge” between now and 2022 when a domestically-manufactured engine comes available.

 

This, too, is false.

 

Today, we have two space launch providers—ULA and SpaceX—that, no matter what happens with the Russian RD-180, will be able to provide fully redundant capabilities with ULA’s Delta IV and SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and eventually, the Falcon Heavy space launch vehicles. There will be no capability gap. The Atlas V is not going anywhere anytime soon. ULA has enough Atlas V’s to get them through at least 2019, if not later.

 

And, as I alluded to a moment ago, the Pentagon agrees that no action is required today to address a risk to assured access to space. In declining ULA’s recent request for a waiver from the NDAA’s restrictions, the Deputy Secretary of Defense concluded that they “do not believe any immediate action is required to address the future risk of having only one source of space launch services.” Indeed, in its recent letter, the Department of Defense even confirmed that ULA has enough engines to compete for each of the nine upcoming competitions and that the number they will pursue is “dependent upon ULA’s business management strategy.”

 

So to Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin, I would ask, what are your priorities?

 

As we speak, Ukrainians are resisting Russian aggression and fighting to keep their country whole and free. Yet this omnibus appropriations bill will send hundreds of millions of dollars to Vladimir Putin, his cronies, and Russia’s military-industrial base as Russia continues to occupy Crimea and destabilize Ukraine. What kind of message does that send to Ukrainians who have been fighting and dying to protect their country?

 

How can we do this when Putin is menacing our NATO allies in Europe? How can we do this when Russia continues to send weapons to Iran? How can we do this when Putin continues to violate the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty? How can we do this when Putin is bombing U.S.-backed forces in Syria fighting the murderous Assad regime?

I understand that some constituents of Senator Shelby and Senator Durbin believe they would benefit from this provision. But as the New York Times editorial board stated earlier this year, “When sanctions are necessary, the countries that impose them must be willing to pay a cost, too. After leaning on France to cancel the sale of two ships to Russia because of the invasion of Ukraine, the United States can hardly insist on continuing to buy national security hardware from one of Mr. Putin’s cronies.” I repeat, that is the opinion of the New York Times.

 

On the record, I make this promise. If this language undermining the National Defense Authorization Act is not removed from the Omnibus, I assure my colleagues that this issue will not go unaddressed in the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Up to this point, we have sought to manage this issue on an annual basis, and we have always maintained that, if a genuine crisis emerged, we would not compromise our national security interests in space. We have sought to be flexible and open to new information, but if this is how our efforts are repaid, then perhaps we need to look at a complete and indefinite restriction on Putin’s rocket engines.

 

I take no pleasure in saying that. I believe that avoiding the year-over-year conflict over this matter between our authorizing and appropriations committees is in our nation’s best interest. Such back-and-forth only delays our shared desire to end our reliance on Russian technology from our space launch supply chain, while injecting instability into our national security space launch program. That instability threatens the reliable launch of our most sensitive national security satellites and the stability of the fragile industrial base that supports them.

 

But, I simply cannot allow Senator Shelby, Senator Durbin, the Appropriations Committee, or any other member of this body to craft a take-it-or-leave-it omnibus spending bill that allows a monopolistic corporation to do business with Russian oligarchs to buy overpriced rocket engines that fund Russia’s belligerence in Crimea and Ukraine, its support for Assad in Syria, and its neo-imperial ambitions.

 

I will not stand for that, and none of you should either.

http://spacenews.com/full-text-mccain-blasts-appropriators-for-lifting-rd-180-ban/

 

Now, this may turn into a yearly event...but....ULA still has to pass the "financial separation component" of the bidding process, which hopefully won't be removed in another omnibus bill.....

 

[Blue-Vision]

Oh yeah. He's mad. More than mad.  He's ready to go Super Saiyan 3 over this swerve.

 

ULA pulled a fast one on everybody. And ATK unwittingly (*snicker*) helped them do it. They needed a "paying customer" to help out with using a couple of those engines, in broad daylight and in front of a captive audience.

 

Yep. Bruno must have been smiling from ear to ear when the Cygnus shipment was being broadcast on NASA-HD. He knew what the real game was all along.

 

Trick bag. *sigh* ...

[Draggendrop Veteran]

I am a bit upset, that in 2015, a blatant prank like this could occur. I should know better and will get over it, but it is this type of posturing that has arguably lost decades of "space innovation" and done by companies like ULA.

 

ULA still has to put an accounting scheme in place for bidding procedures, unless that is also "tricked off" in the near future.

 

In the end, in an all out cost competition, ULA will not fare well which means more antics are in store.

 

SpaceX will continue to do what they do best, and in the future, ULA will be a footnote in history, with a few stains of remembrance.

 

[FloatingFatMan]

An honest politician in the senate, who'd thought!?

 

I wonder how long it'll be before a "scandal" appears to trash his reputation...

 

[DocM]

They tried to paint McCain with a made up skirt chaser scandal but it didn't stick. 

 

That said, he's going to face a primary challenge for nomination this time, a more conservative female former USAF type. 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Sounds like an opening for the "cartel" to remove McCain, for a "gumby".... 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Well, nothing is final as the merry-go-round starts to spin....

 

Shelby to oppose spending bill he loaded with goodies

 

Quote

Sen. Richard Shelby loaded up the $1.1 trillion spending bill with pet provisions, including one measure worth hundreds of millions to a rocket manufacturer with operations in his home state.

The cagey lawmaker also fought hard for language protecting red snapper fisheries on Alabama's Gulf Coast, even issuing a news release bragging about his efforts. “That is why I fought tirelessly for several provisions to be included in the omnibus appropriations bill that I believe will help respond to the serious challenges facing anyone who wants to fish for red snapper in the Gulf," Shelby said in the release.

But in an only-in-Congress twist, Shelby, a very senior member on the Appropriations Committee, still plans to vote against the sprawling omnibus package. He's citing the lack of language to restrict Syrian refugees as the reason.

The move, however, could make the Republican senator the unofficial chairman of the "hope yes, vote no" caucus on Capitol Hill. It also demonstrates the potency of immigration as an electoral issue in Alabama and the power of Shelby’s fellow home-state senator, Republican Jeff Sessions, over the controversial topic in the Southern state.

GOP insiders note that Alabama's Republican primary is on March 1, and Shelby is loath to do anything that would create distance between him and Sessions on immigration before that date.

 

Sessions, the hardest of hard-liners on immigration issues, has warned that passage of the omnibus is part of a plan by President Barack Obama — with the tacit acceptance of Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — to resettle tens of thousands of potentially dangerous Syrian refugees in the United States.

Sessions says the White House is using the threat of a government shutdown to force Republicans to back down on any effort to block refugees from entering the country, or increase vetting for those who do.

"If you don’t vote for it [the spending bill], you shut the government down and you’re a bad guy," Sessions told Breitbart last week. "And that’s the way it’s been year after year after year."

So Shelby is voting against the omnibus package, despite his extensive and successful work to shape its contents.

“While I support the inclusion of several conservative priorities and key provisions critical to Alabama in this year’s omnibus bill, I oppose the overall bill because it gives a blank check to President Obama to continue his dangerous Syrian refugee resettlement plan," Shelby said in a statement Wednesday. "During this increasingly uncertain time in our nation, we simply cannot allow the president — who is more focused on gun control and climate change than national security — to unilaterally determine who can enter our country."

The Alabama Republican has already angered Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Georgia Republicans over what he included in the bill.
McCain was infuriated at Shelby for inserting a provision into the 2,000-page bill allowing defense contractor United Launch Alliance — a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin that builds rockets in Alabama — to continue purchasing Russian rocket engines. The measure would reverse language that McCain included in the annual defense authorization bill that limited ULA to purchasing nine engines from Russia.
McCain complained that Shelby never spoke to him first about the provision.

“Of course not, of course not, of course not. That’s not the way Sen. Shelby does business,” McCain told POLITICO on Wednesday.

Shelby also included nonbinding language in the omnibus that affects a long-running water dispute between Alabama and Georgia officials, a matter that's already in federal court.

Late Thursday, the language was dropped after Peach State lawmakers threatened to vote against the omnibus, a problem for House leaders who need all the votes they can get for the measure.

 

In a letter last month, the Georgia delegation asked party leaders and the Appropriations committees to stay away from the issue, but Shelby included the provision anyway, which angered Peach State lawmakers. The Georgia delegation met Thursday to try to resolve the matter, said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

 

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said all of the state's Republicans and Democrats were upset by Shelby's move.
"Shelby has done this over and over, and so far we've been lucky enough to defend it," Westmoreland said of keeping similar language out of previous bills.

He criticized Shelby's decision to insert the controversial language and then plan to vote against the entire bill.
"That's nuts," Westmoreland said.
 

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/richard-shelby-oppose-sepnding-bill-216904

and

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/12/sen-shelby-the.html

 

Here, is a display of who throws money at him...

https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00009920

 

[DocM]

Shelby is such a pain. He changes partys so his seniority will guarantee retaining chairmanships regardless of control, and browbeats everyone to get what he wants - including NASA. People in both partys are sick of it.

Edited December 18, 2015 by DocM

[Blue-Vision]

He's a weasel. A lowlife who has no morality, and serves no master except the highest bidder -- and even then he has questionable loyalty. The only thing he cares about is keeping himself in Government, where he can continue his games.

 

He's part of the problem. If anything is going to change in Washington, it has to start with removing the gumshoe pieces of garbage like him. 

 

Oh, and that's my 1,500. Yay!

[DocM]

Hello.....

 

 

Quote

Description

 

 

NASA Glenn Research Center plans to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the following Architecture Concept Study:

 

 

NASA invites industry to participate in the definition and analysis of the Nation’s future space communications and navigation architecture with a focus on the Earth and Mars space relay capabilities. This future system capability will provide the next generation space and ground infrastructure to enhance space exploration and return critical science and exploration data to investigators on Earth from all regions of the solar system.

 

The study will focus on trades associated with the following architecture features:
>
>
Relay Capability  integrated functionality relay satellites or disaggregated functionality across a collection of dissimilar satellites providing communications, navigation, and internetworking capabilities

 

Direct to Ground  where/when direct to ground services have technical, operational, and/or cost advantage over relays

 

Spacecraft burden  shared burden (e.g. mass, power, volume, operational complexity) between relay infrastructure and mission spacecraft to increase performance and reduce overall cost

 

Multiple Access  where/when multiple access techniques (e.g. TDMA, FDMA, CDMA, OFDMA, spatial diversity, others) should be used on forward/return links from/to relays in order to simultaneously support the needs of multiple mission spacecraft within the full field of regard

 

Optical Communications  where/when optical links have technical, operational, and/or cost advantage

 

RF Communications  where/when RF links have technical, operational, and/or cost advantage

 

Government ownership and operations  requirements and mission aspects requiring NASA owned or operated assets

 

Commercial Service and operations  

 

mission/infrastructure aspects potentially met by commercial services Internetworking  benefits and burden of providing link layer (2) and network layer (3) services

 

Security  role, approach, benefits, and risks of secure command, telemetry, and science data links

 

Timing and Frequency Standards  common time standards, radiometrics and other navigation aids

 

User Service Requests  means and capacity to support automated requests for communication and navigation services on-demand as well as near term scheduled service

 

Autonomy  where/when in the network autonomy has technical, operational, and/or cost advantage

 

Cognition  adaptive or cognitive communications and networking to improve efficiency

 

Commonality  across elements of near Earth and Mars relays that reduce development or operations costs

 

Deployment of Relay Elements  Launch methods (e.g. primary payload, secondary/ride share, hosted payloads), launch vehicle configuration, number of launches, and cost

 

The anticipated release date of the RFP is on or about January 14, 2016 with an anticipated proposal due date on or about February 15, 2016.

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

Will look forward to reading the released RFP on the 14th.

 

The DSN has done a great job the last few decades, but is showing it's age, mainly due to continual postponements of maintenance and upgrades. The 2020 timeline will see a "zoo" of payloads around, and on Mars, as well as a few deep space payload additions to the solar system "fleet" already out there.

 

NASA and a few others have been working on the optical aspect for awhile and hopefully this becomes part of the network. Although this appears to be mainly communication and navigation, I hope some emphasis is placed on a generic Mars "sample holder" on a member of the Mars orbiting network portion.

 

The commercial services option...well, this can encompass many of SpaceX's abilities.....this could be real good....

 

-------------------------------

 

U.S. Air Force Hails SpaceX Return to Flight

 

Quote

WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s historic first-stage landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida following a successful launch Dec. 21 won accolades throughout the space community, and the U.S. Defense Department was no exception.

 

In a Dec. 23 email to SpaceNews, Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, congratulated SpaceX on the successful mission of the Falcon 9 Upgrade.

 

“Advancements and developments such as those demonstrated by the Falcon 9 Upgrade provide the opportunity to assure our nation’s access to space with improved resiliency,” Greaves said.

 

The Air Force has long been working closely with Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX given the likelihood that the company will be launching U.S. military satellites starting in the next couple of years. SpaceX has emerged as a major challenger to incumbent U.S. government launch services provider United Launch Alliance, which has had the market to itself since 2006.

 

During a breakfast here in July, Greaves said SpaceX helped equip SMC to display the same launch screens and data that company officials see at mission control.

 

When a Falcon 9 carrying supplies for the International Space Station exploded June 28, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell began sending Greaves updates on what might have happened within 10 minutes. In other words, Greaves said, the Air Force followed SpaceX’s failure investigation “extremely closely” from the start.

 

The mishap occurred just weeks after the Air Force initially certified Falcon 9 to launch military payloads. The return to flight took place less than two months after bids were due for the launch of an Air Force GPS 3 satellite in 2018.

 

Denver-based ULA declined to bid for the mission, effectively conceding what was to be the Air Force’s first competitively awarded launch contract in nearly a decade to SpaceX.

http://spacenews.com/u-s-air-force-hails-spacex-return-to-flight/

 

It's nice to see them realizing what newspace can do, and appreciate rapid advancements on the fly....

[Blue-Vision]

So, if I read this correctly, they want proposals for a multi-purpose Communications, Data, SPTS (Solar Positioning & Tracking System), Monitoring and Navigation bird -- and they want a fleet of them that will be compatible with multiple types of access techniques, telemetry bandwidth options, C&C and standards.

 

I will refer back to something I said some time ago that if any participating Nation or Corporation is found to be needlessly delaying the proceedings or development of the systems or the agreed upon standards used, they should be disqualified from any further participation and any/all contributions they made thus far would be forfeited. That should prevent any shenanigans.

 

I will, however, say that in a project this large, "Majority Rule" should be the order of the day regarding standards of measurement and those should be employed since it really is only the United States and (I believe) the U.K. that do not use the Metric System.

 

It's a good idea (and quite necessary) and with access to space getting much better and affordable for everyone it's a great time to begin planning the DSN's replacement.  

[Draggendrop Veteran]

The metric system should be a given, It is the standard of science and engineering. This looks like an upgraded DSN architecture, with emphasis on Mars, which will be busy shortly and the timing and implementation will be borderline for 2020, but one never knows....

[Beittil]

Imho a network of 3 communications birds at Earth-Sun L3, L4 and L5 should go a long way of keeping the lines with the inner solar system open

 

Hell, maybe were even better off placing them in Mars-Sun L points!

[FloatingFatMan]

8 hours ago, Unobscured Vision said:

I will, however, say that in a project this large, "Majority Rule" should be the order of the day regarding standards of measurement and those should be employed since it really is only the United States and (I believe) the U.K. that do not use the Metric System.

 

 

We do, in fact, use the metric system, especially in engineering. Miles/yards get used on our roads, but that's only really because it's cost prohibitive to change to m/km.

 

 

[Draggendrop Veteran]

6 hours ago, Beittil said:

Imho a network of 3 communications birds at Earth-Sun L3, L4 and L5 should go a long way of keeping the lines with the inner solar system open

 

Hell, maybe were even better off placing them in Mars-Sun L points!

Quite right.....IMO, I would use  lagrange points of both systems. It appears the satellites will be used as relay stations to enable larger throughput and reduced "dark time". These units will be able to be smaller repeaters, cheaper to build and easier to deploy, even deployable during other payload missions in the area. If the system starts as "KISS", it could be up quickly and developed over time.

 

[DocM]

Uh-oh,

 

NASA just contracted with AJR for 6 more RS-25 engines, $1.6B, which with stocks would be enough for 5 flights. May have been premature.

 

@NASASpaceflight

KSC guys coming back with interesting news from the KSC All-Hands with Robert Lightfoot and KSC Director Bob Cabana. https://t.co/prHdKzl52J

 

Was supposed to be happy talk, but they all came away with the impression SLS is in trouble. :-( Will write it up.

 

@mgraffin Yeah. The vehicle is fine, just the missions, or lack of them. We knew that was coming, but it sounds a bit worse than before.

Edited January 12, 2016 by DocM

[Blue-Vision]

Oh dear. All of that time, money and resources. Can't say we didn't see this one coming.

 

Orion could always launch on Falcon Heavy using adapters .. maybe. If they build an HR version. It's too heavy to launch on F9.

 

Ooooor. Just purchase flights on Dragon 2. SpaceX would be happy to sell them seats. Dragon 2 is more than capable of performing the missions that Orion/SLS was going to be slated for. Just needs a Bigelow hab, and away we go!