Washington Updates

In March, the Space Foundation issued a statement supporting the Administration’s FY15 budget proposal for NASA, calling the budget proposal a “balanced approach to sustaining key NASA programs and capabilities, while increasing emphasis on next generation capabilities — within a budget constrained environment.” “The president’s proposal of $17.46 billion in FY15 funding for NASA is very…

On March 5, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense held a hearing, “National Security Space Launch Programs.” The Department of Defense (DoD) has begun implementation of a new Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) acquisition strategy to maintain reliability and stability in the industrial base, while reducing costs and introducing competition. The first phase of the…

The White House released its Fiscal Year 2015 budget request to Congress on March 4. The budget is normally issued in early February, but was delayed due to a delay in finalizing FY 2014 funding. The Space Foundation has produced two reports, providing overviews and comparisons of the Fiscal Year 2015 budgets. The reports include…

In February, a team from the Space Foundation’s Washington, D.C., office visited Orbital Sciences Corporation in Dulles, Va., and toured the mission control centers, as well as the spacecraft manufacturing facilities. It is at this location that the company’s spacecraft are designed, built and tested, including civilian, commercial and national security spacecraft. The tour included a…

In February, the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Space held a hearing on “Necessary Updates to the Commercial Space Launch Act.” The Commercial Space Launch Act (CSLA), first passed in 1984, and amended several times since then, gives authority to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to license commercial launches and indemnify launch providers…

On Feb. 27, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing entitled, “U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Cyber Command in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2015.” While the hearing normally reviews President Obama’s budget request for these two Commands, due to the budget being released a month late (March 4) the…