Res Communis

A new federal spending bill represents a cut to NASA’s funding, but a lessening of restrictions on how the agency spends that money for the rest of this year.

The new measure is a political compromise between democrats and republicans, and includes significant spending cuts in the 2011 federal budget. NASA will have to make do with about $18.5 billion, putting its budget roughly $240 million below last year’s funding level.

NASA and the rest of the federal government had been in limbo while lawmakers haggled over the budget. But on Thursday (April 14), Congress passed a spending measure called a continuing resolution that will cover the last five months of the year 2011.

In the frame of the “Multi Launch Agreement” with Arianespace, the Luxemburg operator of satellites SES has confirmed to Arianespace the launch of the ASTRA 2E satellite slated for the second semester of 2013.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A top Chinese government space official on April 14 appealed to the U.S. government to lift its decade-long ban on most forms of U.S.-Chinese space cooperation, saying both nations would benefit from closer government and commercial space interaction.

He specifically called for cooperation on manned space flight, in which China has made massive investment in recent years.

Lei Fanpei, vice president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), which oversees much of China’s launch vehicle and satellite manufacturing industry, said China purchased more than $1 billion in U.S.-built satellites in the 1990s before the de facto ban went into effect in 1999.

Since then, the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) have made it impossible to export most satellite components, or full satellites, to China for launch on China’s now successful line of Long March rockets.

The ITAR regulations that tightened the U.S. technology export regime were put into place to punish China for its missile exports, and to slow development of China’s rocket industry by reducing its customer base. Most commercial telecommunications satellites carry at least some U.S. parts, which is why ITAR has all but locked China out of the global commercial launch market. [Full story]

The director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Zheng Guoguang presented representatives from 16 Asian countries with integrated satellite broadcasting and receiving stations and the CMA’s meteorological information comprehensive analysis and processing system on behalf of the Chinese government on April 11.

The recipients of the equipment are Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tadzhikistan, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. [Full story]