I wanted to pass along some personal news: I’ve taken a position starting today with SpaceNews, as a senior writer there. I’ll be writing there on a lot about what you’ve seen here and elsewhere: space policy, commercial space, and related topics. It’s a great opportunity and I look forward to working with the excellent team there. With that good news,...

A day after NASA announced that the first SLS may not be ready for launch until as late as November 2018, two key members of the House Science Committee asked NASA for details on both the schedule and funding levels of the SLS and Orion programs. In a letter released by the committee Thursday morning, Reps. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Steven Palazzo (R-MS),...

An announcement Wednesday by NASA that the first launch of the agency’s Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket could slip by nearly a year has led one key senator to suggest the program needs some budgetary help. NASA announced Wednesday that the SLS passed its Key Decision Point C (KDP-C) review, an assessment of the program’s technical and programmatic...

Although the supply of Russian-built RD-180 engines that power the first stage of the Atlas V do not appear to be in the same level of jeopardy as feared earlier this year—United Launch Alliance took delivery of two of those engines last week—the US Air Force is starting to lay the groundwork for development of a domestic replacement engine. Last week,...

With no sign of progress on appropriations bills stalled in the Senate, the House is making plans to pass a “clean” continuing resolution that will keep the government running at least into December, a top House member said this week. In an interview with the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call Wednesday in Philadelphia, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman...

In a speech at a US Strategic Command symposium last week, a top State Department official made the case again for various multilateral efforts to improve space security, even as China appeared to perform another test of an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. Frank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance at the...