Latest news with #SpaceLaunchSystem
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
New NASA contractor retains nearly all Michoud staffers that faced layoffs
NASA's Ground Transportation team guides NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket's completed core stage from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency's Pegasus barge on Jan. 8, 2023. (Tyler Martin/NASA). NEW ORLEANS – Nearly all of the employees of a NASA contractor at the Michoud Assembly Facility and Stennis Space Center that faced layoffs at the end of June have been hired by the company that's been awarded a similar contract. Syncom Spaces Services, a Fort Worth, Texas-based joint venture, gave official notice to state labor officials in May that it would lay off 296 employees once its contract with NASA expired at the end of June. Several positions were impacted, including construction personnel, electricians, maintenance workers and engineers in multiple disciplines. Nova Space Solutions was awarded an $823 million NASA contract last year to provide many of the same services as Syncom, and it has absorbed nearly all of the Michoud and Stennis staff that had worked for Syncom. CJ Loria, Nova's president and general manager, said in a statement to the Illuminator that its contract does not cover some of the functions at Stennis that were split off into separate contracts. They include security services, the Stennis Fire Department and rocket testing, 'We hired roughly 95% of the incumbent … workforce that were not on the other three previously mentioned contracts,' Loria said. Nova now employs 518 people at the two sites, with 260 of those at Michoud and 258 at Stennis. Nova Space Solutions is a joint venture between Chugach Government Solutions of Anchorage, Alaska, and Amentum, a major government contractor based in Virginia. Amentum was also a partner in the Syncom contract, having partnered with BWXT, a multi-industry government services provider also based in Virginia. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA Continues Testing Multi-Billion Dollar Rocket While Trump Is Actively Trying to Cancel It
Despite president Donald Trump's plans to phase out Boeing's mega-expensive Space Launch System rocket for NASA, the agency is currently trundling ahead with the original plan. As Ars Technica reports, NASA and Northup Grumman tested an experimental hydrogen-based propulsion engine this week that's slated to launch the world's first crewed trip to the Moon as part of the agency's long-awaited Artemis mission. Unfortunately, this week's SLS engine test — the second such test launch in a week — experienced an anomaly during its firing at a facility in Utah. As video of the incident shows, a plume of debris rained down after the rocket's exhaust nozzle shattered. Along with the test failure, other outstanding circumstances are threatening the mission, too. The hydrogen engine from that test isn't supposed to be used until the fifth flight of the SLS — something that won't happen if the Trump Administration gets its way and kiboshes the SLS after just three launches so it can pursue cheaper options. A new bill in Congress aims to push it to at least five — but that's going to be a pretty expensive endeavor. While the current government initially wanted to cancel the SLS so that Elon Musk's SpaceX rockets can take its place, there's good reason for concern about how expensive the rocket has become. In the many years it's taken to bring the SLS to fruition, NASA has spent at least $23 billion worth of taxpayer dollars on building it — and as Ars notes, future missions will cost $4.2 billion per launch, too. With so much uncertainty surrounding the Artemis mission, NASA appears to be powering on with the SLS tests. We can't say how far the mission will go — but either the rocket's going to have a longer life than we thought, or this is all an expensive, bureaucratic mess. More on NASA: NASA Is in Full Meltdown
The Hill
6 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
NASA funding is an ugly casualty of the ‘big, beautiful bill'
The 'big, beautiful bill' recently signed into law enacted a number of tax, spending and regulatory measures. President Trump and his supporters regard the new law as a triumph. Trump's enemies not so much. NASA spending measures are tucked inside the bill that can best be described as ugly, or at the very least ill-advised. As Gizmodo reported, the Trump budget proposal phased out the Space Launch System heavy lift launcher and Orion spacecraft and cancelled the Lunar Gateway space station. After the Artemis III mission, the first crewed lunar landing in decades, NASA would opt for more commercial and sustainable alternatives to maintain a moon exploration campaign. The approach was favored by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and former NASA administrator nominee Jared Isaacman. Congress chose to ignore the administration's recommendations in favor of a more traditional approach. According to Gizmodo, '$2.6 billion would go toward fully funding Gateway, $4.1 billion would support [Space Launch System], and $20 million would go to the development of Orion.' At least until Artemis V, the return to the moon will follow the plan first set out during the first Trump presidency. The plan was proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. There are two possible reasons for this divergence between the White House and Congress. The cynical explanation is that the Space Launch System, for all of its huge costs, provides a lot of jobs and money in key states and congressional districts. If the project goes away, the jobs and money go away. The less cynical possibility is that although Congress may be in favor of a commercial approach to the moon and Mars in theory, it is skeptical that it will happen in a timely fashion. The long time the Commercial Crew took to get off the ground may be informing this, as is the trouble SpaceX's Starship has been having not blowing up. Whatever the reason for preserving the Space Launch System, the Orion and the Lunar Gateway, — and it may be a combination of the two suggested reasons — it seems to be a step backward in the opening to human civilization of the moon, Mars and beyond. The Space Launch System is simply too expensive to be the centerpiece of an effective and sustainable program to send humans beyond low Earth orbit. Fortunately, the bill is not the end of the story where NASA funding is concerned. Congressional appropriators still have to round out the space agency's spending bill for the next fiscal year. Congress can not only restore some of the draconian cuts that the White House has proposed for NASA's science programs, but it can also start the end-to-end commercial lunar initiative first discussed in a recent piece in Ars Technica. Trump has two things on his plate that he should take care of sooner rather than later. First, he needs to reconstitute the National Space Council with Vice President JD Vance at its head. The Space Council will provide a central point for space policy going forward. Trump has named Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy as interim NASA administrator. Duffy is an able man with political experience and an expressed interest in space. However, he will be spread thin running both the Department of Transportation and the space agency. Trump has to nominate a permanent NASA administrator. The deep-sixing of his previous nomination of billionaire private space traveler Jared Isaacman was an incredible act of self-sabotage that has hurt NASA and Trump's own space policy. Unfortunately, Trump doubled down with an attack on Isaacman in a social media rant against Musk, who had recommended him. Without using Isaacman's name, Trump wrote that Musk 'asked that one of his close friends run NASA.' He said he initially thought the friend was 'very good,' but 'was surprised to learn that he was a blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before.' He added, 'I also thought it inappropriate that a very close friend of Elon, who was in the Space Business, run NASA, when NASA is such a big part of Elon's corporate life.' As Space News notes, Isaacman is a moderate Republican who donated to both parties, a common practice for businessmen (including Trump when he was in the private sector). His ties to Musk derive from the fact that SpaceX is the only company that can provide private crewed spaceflight services. Why Trump would post such claims is open to speculation. Likely he is being lied to by staffers who dislike Musk. If the president cannot bring himself to rectify his mistake of withdrawing Isaacman's nomination, he needs to name a suitable replacement, and the sooner the better. Then Congress should fast track that person's confirmation so that he or she can start to revitalize NASA as a world-class space agency. America's future as a space power depends on it. Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond,' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.
Bloomberg
08-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trump's Big Bill Saves a NASA Rocket Detractors Longed to Kill
When SpaceX founder Elon Musk became a close adviser to President Donald Trump, some space-industry watchers assumed it would spell the end of the Space Launch System, a NASA rocket built by Boeing Co. that detractors have derided as a costly boondoggle. Instead, the Musk-Trump alliance came to an abrupt end. The SLS is living on.
NDTV
04-07-2025
- Business
- NDTV
GOP Tax Package Gives NASA Billions After Donald Trump Proposed Cuts
The massive GOP tax and spending package, passed by the House of Representatives on Thursday, will provide $10 billion to NASA programs that the administration had proposed to partially cut, including the space agency's marquee moon program and operations at the International Space Station. The reconciliation package includes $4.1 billion for NASA's Boeing Co.-built Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket and $20 million directed to the Lockheed Martin Corp. Orion crew capsule to help fund the fourth and fifth missions of the agency's Artemis moon program. These missions, which Trump had suggested canceling in his original budget request, would establish a lunar space station called Gateway and utilize a contracted landing system from Blue Origin for the first time to place humans on the moon. President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign the bill into law at 5 p.m. local time in Washington on Friday, according to the White House. In May, the administration had called to phase out the "grossly expensive and delayed" SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule after the third Artemis mission and replace them with commercial options for sending humans to the moon. The tax package also allocates $1.25 billion for maintaining the International Space Station over the next five years after the administration had instead proposed reducing crew and cargo missions to the orbiting laboratory. It further directs $700 million for a Mars communication spacecraft that could assist with bringing samples of Martian soil back to Earth, a long-term science initiative the White House had planned to outright cancel. Congress's push to allocate billions of dollars to the space agency suggests that lawmakers may be concerned about sustaining some of NASA's most prominent programs. The Artemis program in particular has been fiercely supported in Congress in part because the development of the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule supports tens of thousands of jobs in Republican-controlled states like Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Lawmakers have also made the case that the current Artemis architecture is the fastest way to beat China to the moon and protect the US's national security interests. The legislation also highlights Congress's desire for NASA to send humans back to the moon. Trump, while being advised by SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, had previously called for sending humans to Mars, signaling a potential change in direction for the space agency. The package imposes a fee on rockets and spacecraft that launch to space and land back on Earth, a charge that is likely to most directly affect SpaceX, the world's most prolific launch provider. The provision is projected to generate around $60 million to support the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation through 2034, according to a summary of the bill. Other last-minute adds to the legislation included a tax credit for spaceports, which would give these facilities the ability to issue tax-exempt bonds, and a provision allocating $85 million to transfer one of NASA's historic Space Shuttle vehicles to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for public exhibition. The transfer of the shuttle, a win for the Texas delegation, narrowly made it into the legislation after being subject to a review by the Senate rules-keeper for final inclusion.
