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Obama Administration Releases Draft Rules to Ease Satellite Export Controls - updateUPDATE, May 24: Links to the proposed rules as published in the Federal Register have been added. ORIGINAL STORY, May 23: The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) announced the news this afternoon that the Obama Administration has released the draft rules for easing export controls on satellites. It is another step in a process likely to last for many more months as the Administration implements export control changes agreed to in the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The satellite industry has been trying for more than a decade to move commercial satellites off the State Department's strict Munitions List and its International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and over to the dual-use Commerce Control List at the Department of Commerce. SIA provided links to the draft regulations issued by the Department of State and the Department of Commerce. Those websites state that the draft rules will be published in tomorrow's Federal Register (May 24), the official method by which the government publicizes regulatory proceedings. The draft rules were indeed published in the Federal Register on May 24. The State Department's draft rule is at this site, and the Commerce Department's at this site. Comments are due 45 days after publication in the Federal Register (July 8, 2013).
Patti Grace Smith: Extend Indemnification for 10 Years, At leastPatti Grace Smith called on Congress last week to extend the FAA’s authority to provide third party indemnification for commercial launch services companies for 10 years or, better yet, permanently. After lengthy debate last year, Congress extended the indemnification authority for only one year – through December 31, 2013 -- so the topic is back on the table for consideration this year. Smith was a witness at a May 16 Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on advancing partnerships in the business of space. Much of the hearing focused on the nexus between government and commercial space activities in future human space exploration, but she also raised narrower issues important to the commercial space launch industry. A former head of the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST), she is now a consultant to the commercial space industry and chairs the Commercial Space Committee of the NASA Advisory Council. She also advised the subcommittee that AST should remain a part of the FAA rather than reporting directly to the Secretary of Transportation as it did when it was created in 1984. She believes that by keeping the office within the FAA, aviation officials are forced to deal with questions about how to integrate commercial space launches into the National Airspace System (NAS) rather than ignoring them. Eventually AST should “take its rightful, its logical place as another transportation mode” separate from the FAA, but in her view it is better situated within the FAA for now. Prepared statements of the witnesses and a webcast of the hearing are available on the committee’s website. Space Policy Events for the Week of May 20-24, 2013The following space policy events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House and Senate are in session this week. During the Week Among the highlights of the coming week are congressional hearings on NASA and NOAA and House Armed Services Committee (HASC) subcommittee markups of the FY2014 National Defense Authorization Act. A House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) subcommittee will hold a hearing on Tuesday on Next Steps in Human Exploration of Space that seems focused on the new asteroid retrieval mission proposed in NASA's FY2014 budget request. Another House SS&T subcommittee will hold a hearing on Thursday on how to restore U.S. leadership in weather forecasting, a NOAA responsibility, though it is hard to tell how much of that will focus on weather satellites rather than computer models. Later that morning the Senate Commerce committee will hold its nomination hearing for Penny Pritzker to be the new Secretary of Commerce. The Department of Commerce is NOAA's parent agency and it also is one of the two cabinet level departments responsible for export controls (State Department is the other), so is a critical participant in implementing the export control reforms required under last year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Rumors were rampant that the draft regulations for reforming satellite export controls would be published in the Federal Register last week, but that did not happen; perhaps they will be issued this week. That is just one step in the lengthy regulatory process that many hope will result in commercial satellites no longer being subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) under the State Department's Munitions List. All of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) subcommittees will markup their respective portions of the FY2014 NDAA this week. The Strategic Forces subcommittee, which is responsible for most military space programs, will hold its markup on Wednesday. Full committee markup is scheduled for June 5. (The Senate Armed Services Committee markups are scheduled for June 11-12.) Monday, May 20
Monday-Wednesday, May 20-22
Monday-Friday, May 20-24
Tuesday, May 21
Wednesday, May 22
Thursday, May 23
Thursday-Monday, May 23-27
Did China Conduct Another ASAT Test?If you believe China's account, it launched a geophysical sounding rocket yesterday. If you believe Bill Gertz, it was an antisatellite (ASAT) test. China's official news agency, Xinhua, reported that it launched a sounding rocket at 9:00 pm (Beijing Time) Monday with a scientific payload to study energetic particles and magnetic fields. The launch was from the Xichang space launch site near Chengdu. Bill Gertz, senior editor at the Washington Free Beacon and a columnist for the Washington Times, however, reports that it was an ASAT test disguised as a space exploration rocket. He describes it as "the first test of a new ground-launched anti-satellite missile" whose existence, he says, was first reported by the Free Beacon in October. Some U.S. experts on China's space program expected an ASAT test in January that did not materialize. Greg Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists argued that the United States should try to convince China not to conduct the test. China's successful 2007 ASAT test against one of its own weather satellites created over 3,000 pieces of space debris that earned it international condemnation. That launch also was from Xichang, but used a different rocket. Gertz quoted a Pentagon spokesperson as saying only that they do not comment on intelligence matters. Reporters did not ask questions about it at the daily State Department briefings yesterday or today. The Pentagon released its most recent congressionally-required annual assessment of military and security developments involving China last week -- often called the "China military power" report. The topic of ASATs was not raised during a press conference with David Helvey, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, and the report itself says little new about China's space or counter-space activities. Space Policy Events for the Week of May 13-17, 2013The following events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House and Senate are in session this week. During the Week Perhaps the most intriguing event this week is Thursday's House Science, Space and Technology (SS&T) Committee's Oversight Subcommittee hearing on "Espionage Threats at Federal Laboratories: Balancing Scientific Cooperation While Protecting Critical Information." No NASA witnesses are on the list, but it would be surprising if the agency is not a subject of discussion. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) made headlines earlier this year with allegations that a Chinese national, Bo Jiang, was stealing secrets from NASA's Langely Research Center. Jiang was arrested, but later exonerated of a felony charge of lying to federal investigators. Wolf has raised concerns for some time about alleged improprieties regarding ITAR-controlled information at NASA's Ames Research Center. Wolf chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA and works closely with House SS&T Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) on this issue. They jointly sent a letter to the FBI and to the Department of Justice Inspector General about their concerns about NASA-Ames this spring (links to the letters are on Rep. Wolf's website). Witnesses on Thursday are Chuck Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering (and President Emeritus of MIT); Larry Wortzel, chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (and former Asian Studies Center director at the Heritage Foundation); Michelle Van Cleave, Senior Research Fellow at George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute (she was the National Counterintelligence Executive in the George W. Bush Administration and once was a staffer on the House SS&T Committee); and David Major of the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (a retired FBI agent, his company trains people in counterintelligence and related topics). Should be interesting! Monday, May 13
Tuesday, May 14
Tuesday-Wednesday, May 14-15
Thursday, May 16
Space Policy Events for the Week of May 6-10, 2013 - updateUPDATE: Adds another hearing on the FY2014 Air Force budget request; this one by Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on Wednesday. The following events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House and Senate are in session this week. During the Week Sending people to Mars is one theme of the upcoming week. A three-day "summit" sponsored by ExploreMars and George Washington University's (GWU) Space Policy Institute will be held at GWU's Lisner Auditorum on Monday-Wednesday. This is also the week that Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin releases his new book, Mission to Mars, written with veteran space journalist Leonard David. There are events throughout the week related to release of the book. In Washington, there are events on Wednesday and Thursday nights at the National Geographic, and on Friday at the National Press Club. The search for other Earths -- exoplanets -- will be the topic of a hearing by two subcommittees of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee on Thursday. On a more prosaic level, two hearings on the Air Force's FY2014 budget request will be held on Tuesday and Thursday. Monday-Wednesday, May 6-8
Tuesday, May 7
Tuesday-Wednesday, May 7-8
Wednesday, May 8
Wednesday and Thursday, May 8 and May 9
Thursday, May 9
Friday, May 10
Space Policy Events for the Week of April 29-May 3, 2013The following events may be of interest in the week ahead. The House and Senate both are in recess this week. During the Week After an intense two weeks, the upcoming week will be much more relaxed as members of the House and Senate work in their State and district offices instead of Washington. So we will have a chance to catch our breaths. There are a few events of interest, though. Monday-Tuesday, April 29-30
Wednesday, May 1
Thursday, May 2
Space Policy Events for the Week of April 21-26, 2013The following events may of be interest in the week ahead, starting today with the rescheduled launch of Antares hopefully around 5:00 pm ET. The House and Senate both are in session this week. During the Week Orbital Sciences Corp. will try again today (Sunday) to launch its new Antares rocket for the first time. Two previous attempts were scrubbed, the first because of a technical glitch and yesterday because of weather. The launch window again opens at 5:00 pm ET. Follow @OrbitalSciences and @NASA_Wallops on Twitter to keep up to date. That's just the start of a very busy week, with many congressional hearings on NASA, NOAA, FAA and DOD space activities (see our separate list of just those hearings, though one more has arisen since -- the House Appropriations hearing on the FAA budget request on Wednesday, which includes the Office of Commercial Space Transportation). Among the other highlights are a meeting of the National Research Council's Committee on Human Spaceflight tomorrow and Tuesday and a meeting of the full NASA Advisory Council (NAC) on Wednesday and Thursday (many of the NAC committees met last week and one more will meet on Monday). CORRECTION: The SASC hearing on military space programs and DOD use of the spectrum is on April 24, not April 23 as originally shown in this list. Our apologies for the error. It is corrected in the revised list below. Sunday, April 21
Monday, April 22
Monday-Tuesday, April 22-23
Monday-Thursday, April 22-25
Tuesday, April 23
Wednesday, April 24
Wednesday-Thursday, April 24-25
Thursday, April 25
Big Week Coming Up for Hearings on NASA, NOAA, DOD SpaceNASA, NOAA and national security space programs will be in the spotlight on Capitol Hill next week. Here is a list of the hearings we know about as of this morning. All times are Eastern. More details -- including location and witnesses (where announced) -- are available by clicking on the links. Remember that times, dates and witnesses for congressional hearings are subject to change; check the relevant committee's website for the most up to date information. Most committees webcast their hearings. NASA
NOAA
National Security Space
Space Policy Events for the Week of April 14-19, 2013The following events may be of interest in the coming week. The House and Senate both are in session. During the Week The big event this week is the scheduled first launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket from Wallops Island, VA. Orbital is the competitor to SpaceX for commercial cargo launches to the International Space Station (ISS). It was chosen for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program a year and a half after SpaceX (replacing RocketPlane-Kistler, which failed to meet its milestones) so is just now getting to the flight test stage. NASA continues to hope that Orbital's services will begin this year. It has signed a contract for eight Orbital launches in addition to the 12 with SpaceX. The launch of Antares, with a mass simulator of Orbital's Cygnus spacecraft, is scheduled for Wednesday between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm ET. Launch delays, especially with new rockets, are not uncommon. Additional launch opportunities exist through April 21. Orbital is launching from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at NASA's Wallops Flight Faclity on the coast of Virginia near the southern tip of the Delmarva (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) peninsula, about 3-4 hours driving time east of Washington, D.C. If the weather conditions are just right, and especially if the launch takes place in the latter part of the launch window when the skies are darker, it may be visible from the DC area. Sunday, April 14
Monday-Friday, April 15-19
Monday-Tuesday, April 15-16
Tuesday, April 16
Tuesday-Wednesday, April 16-17
Wednesday, April 17
Thursday, April 18
Thursday-Friday, April 18-19
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