NASA facing shutdown Presented by Northrop Grumman

PRE-FLIGHT BRIEFING

HAPPY SHUTDOWN WEEK: The government will shut down at the end of this week if Congress isn’t able to pass a short-term spending bill or a broader appropriations package. That’s bad news for NASA, since about 90 percent of its workforce would be furloughed, according to the agency’s plan for a shutdown last year.

“NASA still is evaluating how it would be affected by a lapse of government funding after Dec. 21,” NASA spokesperson Megan Powers said in a statement. “In previous shutdowns, we have maintained personnel to support the International Space Station and its crew, and currently operating space missions, such as satellites, landers, rovers, to ensure they’re safe and secure.”


NASA has not released an updated shutdown plan, but the 2017 version called for closing all NASA visitor centers and discontinuing access to NASA TV, along with other public-facing activities. Contractors may continue working on projects that are already funded, as long as they don’t need NASA personnel or facilities.

A short shutdown over the holidays would likely have little impact. But if the shutdown stretches into 2019 it could delay some major programs, such as the first test of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule planned for mid-January, predicted Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

A quick reminder that Congress has already funded the Defense Department for fiscal 2019, so any space missions or acquisition programs at the Pentagon won’t be affected by a shutdown.

WELCOME TO POLITICO SPACE, our briefing on the policies and personalities shaping the new space age in Washington and beyond — publishing each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email us at [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected] with tips, pitches and feedback, and find us on Twitter at @jacqklimas, @bryandbender and @dave_brown24. And don’t forget to check out POLITICO's astropolitics page here for articles, Q&As, opinion and more.



IN ORBIT

NEW GPS SET TO LAUNCH: The first satellite in a constellation that will bring more advanced and secure GPS technology to the public is set to launch Tuesday, replacing a GPS satellite that was launched in 1997. The GPS III satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, will provide more accurate location information and greater protection from cyber attacks. Officials, however, said it will take several months to get the satellite up and running, so people won’t see an immediate difference on their devices.

The mission also marks another milestone: SpaceX’s first national security mission for the Air Force. But the Defense Department asked the contractor, which sued the Pentagon for the right to compete for launches, not to land and re-use its booster as it does in commercial launches. “The rocket is here to make sure we deliver this capability safely on orbit,” Walter Lauderdale, mission director of the Space and Missiles Systems Center Launch Enterprise Systems Directorate, told reporters Friday. “Fundamentally, we need to remove uncertainty and analyze performance.” He left open the possibility that the booster could be recovered on future GPS missions.

Tuesday’s launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which Vice President Mike Pence will be attending, has an 80 percent chance of favorable weather, said Capt. Jason Fontenot of the 45th Weather Squadron, which will oversee the launch.

MILESTONE: SpaceX breaks commercial launch record: SpaceX has already launched 20 times so far in 2018, beating the previous record of 18 launches in a year set by Elon Musk’s company in 2017, Business Insider reports. Tuesday’s launch would bring the number to 21.

A LICENSE PLATE FOR SATELLITES: Aboard the Rocket Lab mission that launched Saturday night — the California-based company’s first for NASA — was a new technology that will allow operators to identify satellites from the ground, like a license plate helps identify the owner of a car. David Palmer, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, developed the Extremely Low Resource Optical Identifier, or ELROI, that emits short bursts of light in a unique pattern that allow it to be tracked and identified from ground stations. It could help with space traffic management in low-Earth orbit, which is already congested and getting more so as companies plan for constellations of hundreds of satellites.

The system is the size of a postage stamp and about a quarter inch thick, including the light-emitting beacon, a solar cell to power the light and a battery so it can work at night, Palmer said. The size is critical, since cubesat manufacturers and operators have pushed back against adding tracking technology that would weigh down their small, light and cheap machines. Palmer is waiting for this first test before bringing it to industry, but said a lot of early conversations have been “very positive.” “A lot of people want this,” he said.

ICYMI: PREPARING FOR SPACE WAR: Pence participated in a space war game on Friday in the White House situation room with leaders from the DoD and intelligence community, a White House official said. While the details of the simulation are classified, it could include scenarios such as a U.S. satellite being hit by a weapon or a cyberattack that knocks it out of commission, affecting military intelligence and emergency communications.

“As nations are introducing increasingly concerning threats to both government and commercial space systems, our senior leaders need to be prepared to protect our space assets,” the official told us ahead of the exercise.

Several top-level defense officials and Cabinet staff were also in the room for the exercise, including Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Paul Selva, U.S. Strategic Command chief Gen. John Hyten, National Reconnaissance Office Director Betty Sapp, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.



OUTER LIMITS

TRACKING SANTA FROM SPACE: Analytical Graphics Inc., a space software company, is helping the North American Aerospace Defense Command track Santa on Christmas Eve, a program it has worked on since 1997. This year, the company is providing the software that projects Santa’s route onto a globe, which is produced using satellite imagery. It also helps with the video feeds that show Santa flying through cities around the world, said Paul Graziani, the company’s CEO.

The International Space Station is getting into the holiday spirit, too. Astronaut Anne McClain tweeted a photo of the Elf on the MELF, the Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer, which preserves scientific samples to be returned to Earth.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away it diminished in size. Finally, it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.” — Apollo 15 Astronaut James Irwin.

READING ROOM

— Meet the pilots who brought Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft to the edge of space.

— Does Virgin Galactic’s milestone mean space tourism is finally here?

— How NASA’s lunar orbiter could help with commercial missions to the moon.

— Turkey establishes its own space agency to develop the country’s space industry.

— Ukraine cutting state financing of space industry in 2019.

— See the crater where NASA’s Mars 2020 rover will land.

— NASA thinking about looking for life on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

— If there’s life on Mars, it could be beneath the surface.

— The Parker Solar Probe captured the closest photo that’s been taken of the sun.

— Japan names is asteroid rovers OWL and HIBOU.

— NBA star Stephen Curry apologizes for saying the U.S. never landed on the moon.

— The best space photos of 2018.



EVENT HORIZON

TUESDAY: SpaceX is expected to launch the Air Force’s GPS III from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

TUESDAY: United Launch Alliance is expected to launch a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Follow us on Twitter Bryan Bender @bryandbender



Dave Brown @dave_brown24



Jacqueline Feldscher @jacqklimas