By Jeff Foust on 2014 August 3 at 9:46 am ET At first glance, planetary scientists who study asteroids might seem to be obvious supporters of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) plans. It would, after all, redirect a small near Earth asteroid (NEA) into lunar orbit, where astronauts would visit it and return perhaps many kilograms of samples. In fact, though, many planetary scientists have expressed […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 July 24 at 9:47 am ET In contrast to NASA and industry claims that work on the Space Launch System (SLS) is on track, a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Wednesday warned that tight schedules and budgets could delay the first launch of that heavy-lift rocket.
The report, requested by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), warned that the flat […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 July 10 at 9:57 am ET The White House has withdrawn the nomination of NASA’s current chief financial officer (CFO) to a position at the Energy Department. In a press release Wednesday, The White House said it was withdrawing Beth Robinson’s nomination to be Under Secretary of Energy, nearly a year after first announcing the nomination.
No reason was given […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 22 at 12:10 pm ET Despite comments made last week by Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin that Russia would ban the use of the RD-180 engine to launch US military payloads, an Atlas V 401 rocket, powered by such an engine, lifted off Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. That doesn’t […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 May 1 at 2:53 pm ET Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is one of the most powerful members of Congress given her position as chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. She’s used that power to help NASA—or, at least, specific programs within the agency—win funding. However, she’s not shy to speak up when she thinks the agency is off course, which is […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 April 16 at 7:10 am ET The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released on Tuesday its annual assessment of “large-scale” NASA projects. The good news of the report was that NASA, by and large, is doing well in terms of cost and schedule performance of its major programs: an average cost growth of 3% and launch delay of 2.8 months for 14 […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 April 8 at 7:30 pm ET NASA administrator Charles Bolden appeared before the Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee in a hearing about NASA’s fiscal year 2015 budget request Tuesday morning—and into the afternoon as well, as the hearing, which started at 9:30 am, didn’t wrap up until about 1 pm. The first part of the […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 January 31 at 12:30 pm ET To hear it from NASA, development of its largest science mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), remains on track. Last week, the agency announced that the program passed another milestone: a spacecraft critical design review (CDR), the last of several CDRs for various aspects of the space observatory. “What that means is all of […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 January 17 at 7:10 am ET Many in the planetary science community, and space advocates in general, have been dreading the upcoming “Senior Review” later this year of ongoing NASA planetary missions. This biennial process examines those missions that have completed their primary missions to determine which should continue, and at what funding levels. The concern is that the funding available […]
By Jeff Foust on 2014 January 14 at 5:30 am ET Late Monday evening, House and Senate appropriations formally released their joint omnibus bill to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2014. For NASA, the bill provides the agency with $17.646 billion, a decrease of less than $70 million from the administration’s original proposal and a billion dollars more than what House appropriators approved last […]
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