| | | | |  Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON – Congressional leaders on Thursday agreed to fund the federal government until Dec. 22 while parties continue to hash out major disagreements over spending priorities.
A stopgap measure means the Defense Department must continue to operate at the 2017 base budget level of $523.2 billion, far less than the $574.5 billion requested by the Trump administration for the 2018 budget year that began Oct. 1. The temporary funding also means the Pentagon cannot start new procurements or technology development programs. Further complicating the negotiations is that for the Pentagon to get the $574.5 billion requested for 2018, Congress would have to lift spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act. For defense, the cap is $549 billion. | | |  Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — As competition ratchets up for space dominance, adversaries are poised to challenge the United States, causing real concern among policy makers at the Pentagon.
"The threats are moving fast and we need to stay ahead of it," said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Stephen Kitay. "We absolutely need to move with urgency," Kitay told SpaceNews in his first media interview since taking office. "Space is not a sea of tranquility." | |  The 2017 SpaceNews Awards
**We secured a larger space for our previously sold-out awards lunch. Space remains limited. Join us one last time in 2017 as the SpaceNews journalists who covered the breakthroughs and breakdowns that defined our industry's pivotal year provide a spirited recap and announce the winners of the SpaceNews Awards for Excellence & Innovation. The lunch coincides with the Dec. 18 issue of SpaceNews Magazine honoring the achievements of space professionals, companies and organizations. Find out who SpaceNews and its readers picked for: - Turnaround of the Year
- Breakthrough of the Year
- Unsung Hero of the Year
- Company of the Year
- Startup of the Year
- Deal of the Year
- Corporate Leader of the Year
- Government Agency of the Year
- Government Leader of the Year (Military)
- Government Leader of the Year (Civil)
| | |  Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — NASA will provide an updated launch date for the James Webb Space Telescope early next year, even as some warn that the mission might face further delays.
At a Dec. 6 hearing of the House Science Committee's space subcommittee, Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science, said the revised launch date would come after an independent review of the status of the spacecraft. "At this moment in time, with the information that I have, I believe it's achievable," he said of the current launch window of March to June 2019, which NASA announced in September after delaying the launch from October 2018. However, he said an independent review "is exactly what we should be doing, and frankly I have directed the team to do just that in January." | |  Space policy experts lay out their concerns: Will the Trump administration listen?
Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — Officials in the Trump administration have been known to ignore advice from experts. But this White House should listen to what a group of space analysts and scholars have to say, asserts a white paper released Tuesday. The United States needs a "national space policy" that looks broadly at issues like space traffic management, small satellites, proximity operations, orbital debris, counter-space threats and norms of behavior, says a report titled "Major Policy Issues in Evolving Global Space Operations," by The Aerospace Corporation's Center for Space Policy and Strategy. James Vedda, of The Aerospace Corporation, and Peter Hays, of the George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, wrote the report based on a survey of 30 U.S. and international experts. | | | Caleb Henry, WASHINGTON — The space industry has at least 10 startups all wanting to use cubesats or other small satellites to help keep all manner of interoperable devices connected to a rapidly expanding Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. Among them is Fleet, an Adelaide, Australia-based company formed in 2015 that counts the French space agency CNES as one of its partners. Fleet raised roughly $3.8 million in a Series A funding round at the beginning of this year, providing capital to build two of a desired 100 nanosatellites for connecting industrial IoT devices. | | | Caleb Henry, WASHINGTON — United Launch Alliance on Dec. 5 selected L3 Technologies to provide avionics and related services for its next-generation Vulcan rocket. L3 expects to provide ULA with more than $1 billion in hardware and services over the next 10 years, L3 said in a Dec. 4 release. | | | Caleb Henry, WASHINGTON — Canadian remote sensing company UrtheCast and Beijing Space View Technology have teamed up to offer imagery from each other's satellites to their customers, the companies announced Dec. 4. Through a new "strategic cooperation agreement," UrtheCast gained distribution rights for imagery from Space View's SuperView constellation, which today consists of two satellites, and SpaceView acquired distribution rights for imagery from Deimos-1 and Deimos-2. | | | Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — With less than four months remaining in the competition, two of the remaining teams in the Google Lunar X Prize are seeking to raise tens of millions of dollars to complete their spacecraft. In a Nov. 29 statement, Israeli team SpaceIL said it needed to raise $20 million by the end of the year, from both the public as well as the Israeli government, or else it would be forced to cancel the entire mission. | | | Sandra Erwin, WASHINGTON — The space arms race is accelerating and rivals are closing in on the United States, military officials have warned. But on the question of what to do next, opinions diverge. Military and civilian leaders have warned that the Pentagon is taking for granted its access and dominance in space while adversaries keep plugging away. Electronic weapons now being developed by Russia and China, they warn, will one day be aimed at U.S. military satellites in orbit. | | | Jeff Foust, WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration submitted to the National Space Council a set of regulatory reforms that one official said would create a "21st century licensing process" for commercial spaceflight. The proposed changes, intended to streamline licensing of expendable and reusable launch vehicles, were submitted to the Council as one of the 45-day reports requested by its chairman, Vice President Mike Pence, at its first meeting Oct. 5. | | | | | | |
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