Short Takes – 1-7-26 – Space Geek Edition

SkyFi expands virtual constellation with Vantor satellite imagery. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Based in Austin, Texas, SkyFi was founded in 2021 to build what it calls an “earth intelligence” platform. Rather than operating its own satellites, the company aggregates imagery and analytics from dozens of partner-operated spacecraft, creating a virtual constellation. Users can search large imagery archives, task new collections, or apply analytical tools such as object detection and change monitoring through web and mobile apps or an application programming interface.”

Array Labs raises $20 million to scale production of radar satellites for 3D Earth mapping. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “Array is betting that radar hardware long treated as bespoke and expensive can be produced at scale using manufacturing techniques drawn from consumer electronics and telecommunications. Chief executive and co-founder Andrew Peterson said the company’s approach is designed to break a cost curve that has limited the deployment of space-based radar systems beyond a narrow set of government customers.”

Moon rush: These private spacecraft will attempt lunar landings in 2026. Space.com article. Pull quote: “It will be a huge year for the moon overall. NASA plans to send humans back to the vicinity of the moon with the Artemis 2 mission no earlier than February, while China, in the second half of the year, aims to land at the lunar south pole and seek out water ice with its robotic Chang'e 7 spacecraft. But it's not only national agencies targeting Earth's companion, as commercial companies are also taking aim with a series of robotic landers at what could be the start of a sustained, more market-driven lunar presence for humanity.”

Is the race for moon missions lunacy? SpaceNews.com commentary. Pull quote: “In particular, NASA does not know how to protect astronauts from space radiation, especially from the highest energy cosmic rays. Astronauts on the lunar surface will actually experience higher radiation levels than they did on their trip to the moon. The moon itself creates radiation when high-energy galactic cosmic rays impact the lunar soil, or regolith. This impact radiation produces an additional dose of neutrons and gamma radiation, revealed measurements made by the Chinese lunar lander Chang’E 4. Researchers found radiation levels about 2.6 times higher than those aboard the International Space Station because the station is partially shielded by the Earth’s protective magnetosphere.”

No more free rides: it’s time to pay for space safety. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “While many foreign satellite operators have relied on free U.S. safety services in the past, there is no guarantee that they will in the future. Other countries see strategic value in operating their own space traffic coordination (STC) systems — strategic autonomy not just in maintaining a space industrial base but in keeping satellite operations themselves safe — meaning that despite well-intended policies, the U.S. government no longer has a monopoly on space situational awareness.”

L3Harris to sell majority stake in space propulsion unit to AE Industrial. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “L3Harris said the transaction reflects a broader strategic refocus toward core national defense priorities, particularly missile production and other defense systems. The assets being divested — including RL-10 engines used on commercial and government launch vehicles, in-space propulsion technologies and space power systems — are seen as better suited to integration within a broader commercial and space-focused investment portfolio.”

Space Force begins base network overhaul as cybersecurity demands grow. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “According to the Department of the Air Force, the task order will provide resilient, high-throughput connectivity across all 14 U.S. Space Force bases. “This modernization effort will upgrade both classified and unclassified network infrastructure,” the Air Force said, including the use of zero trust security architectures and support for cloud-based applications.”

Backlog List

• The missile meant to strike fear in Russia’s enemies fails once again,

• The overlooked space race: keeping satellites alive,

• Roscosmos replaces cosmonaut on next Crew Dragon mission to ISS,

• Congress warned that NASA’s current plan for Artemis “cannot work”,

• OpenAI CEO reportedly turned to a Seattle startup in quest to challenge SpaceX on the space data frontier,

• Rocket Lab reveals reusable Neutron launcher with "Hungry Hippo" jaws, and

• Muon Space to develop sensor payload for missile defense satellites.

Review – Bills Introduced – 1-6-26

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in Washington,  there were 25 bills introduced. One of those bills will receive additional coverage in this blog:

HR 6938 Making consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes. Cole, Tom [Rep.-R-OK-4]

Space Geek Legislation

I would like to mention one bill under my limited Space Geek coverage in this blog:

HR 6941 To direct the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study to identify the effects of covered geoengineering projects on the health of humans and the environment, and for other purposes. Crane, Elijah [Rep.-R-AZ-2]

 

For more information on these bills, including legislative history for similar bills in the 118^th Congress, as well as a mention in passing about a bill to prevent electrical car fires, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/bills-introduced-1-6-26 - subscription required.

Review – Committee Hearings – Week of 1-4-26

The first week of the 2^nd Session of the 119^th Congress starts out with both the House and Senate in Washington with a very light hearing schedule. I look at last night’s rule hearing for HR 6398, the 2^nd FY 2026 minibus spending bill and one chemical safety hearing later this week.

Minibus Rule Hearing

Last night at about 9:00 EST the House Rules Committee adjourned their rule hearing, subject to the call of the Chair, that included HR 6398, the Commerce, Justice, Science; Energy and Water Development; and Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, 2026, without approving a rule for the consideration of that bill and two others.

Chemical Safety

On Thursday, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on “Chemistry Competitiveness: Fueling Innovation and Streamlining Processes to Ensure Safety and Security”.

On the Floor

Beyond the potential consideration of HR 6398 this week in the House, there is nothing currently scheduled of specific interest here.

 

For more information on these hearings, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/committee-hearings-week-of-1-4-26 - subscription required.

Review – 1 Advisory Published – 1-6-26

Today CISA’s NCCIC-ICS published one control system security advisory for products from Columbia Weather Systems.

Advisories

Columbia Weather System Advisory - This advisory describes three vulnerabilities in the Columbia Weather MicroServer.

 

For more information on these advisories and a brief look at a CISA website problem,  see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/1-advisory-published-1-6-26 - subscription required.

Review - More on New Minibus Spending Bill

Looking at the House and Senate Appropriations Committees web site, the CJS-EWR-IER spending bill I described earlier today is a joint effort of the two committees. Thus, the bill is being treated by the leadership of the two houses as a conference bill. That means that the bill will probably come to the floor in the House under a closed rule, with limited debate and no floor amendments. The Senate leadership will attempt to consider the bill under similar circumstances.

The Republican fringe could still block the Rule being considered this evening with three votes in the Rules Committee. Or they could block the rule on the floor of the House (where Democrats would be expected to vote against the rule on general principles, though that is not a requirement). In either case the bill could be brought to the floor under suspension of the rules where the supermajority requirement would be met with votes from Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Both appropriation committee web sites (House and Senate) provide background information on the bill. They provide links to bill summaries for each of the three Divisions and tables of the congressional earmarks (called ‘Community Project Funding’ on the House page and ‘Congressionally Directed Funding’ on the Senate page). The Senate page provides links to the Joint Explanatory Statement for each Division. Those statements explain the spending allocations supporting the bill, as well as the differences between the language in the Division and in the two original spending bills for the Division. The Senate Appropriations Committee also provides a press release from Sen Murray (D,WA), the Ranking Member explaining the support of the Democrats for the minibus.

 

For more information on the supporting documents, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/more-on-new-minibus-spending-bill - subscription required.

Reader Comment – FY 2026 CISA Budget

Yesterday, a long-time reader and former Chemical Security Inspector sent me a message on LinkedIn about a document he had run across. The DHS Fiscal Year 2026 Budget in Brief was published in July of last year and outlined some of the details of the President’s proposed budget for FY 2026. Even with a Republican controlled Congress, the proposed Budget was not going to survive contact with the legislators, which is why I provide so little coverage of the related documents here.

David pointed me at a specific portion of document, and I am glad that he did, and now wish that I had commented about it at the time. The paragraph is in the CISA portion of the budget summary and it reads:

“Chemical Security Anti-Terrorism Standards ... ($40.0 million), (178 full-time equivalents)

“Due to the sunsetting of the Chemical Security Anti-Terrorism Standards program and the delay in implementing the Secure Handling of Ammonium Nitrate provisions of the Homeland Security Act, this budget reduces the Chemical Security Inspectors and other Headquarters-based staff, as well as eliminates voluntary ChemLock programs.”

We knew, of course, that the CFATS funding was going to be cut, the President never liked the program (45 proposed eliminating the program in 2020.) And because of some bureaucratic games, the CSI were part of the CISA regional offices rather than in CISA proper, there was some hope for keeping some level of the chemical security expertise in those offices after CFATS died, so ‘reduces’ sounds better than ‘eliminates’.

What is most concerning to me is the clause of the quote, eliminating ChemLock. Many of us in the chemical security community hoped to see that program take up the mantel of chemical security so that facilities had some sort of federal support. I even proposed a way to make the voluntary ChemLock program more effective by providing incentives for participation. Apparently, in the Administration’s collective mind, ChemLock was too tainted by CFATS to be allowed to continue.

Fortunately, in a real twisted way, some level of chemical security spending is almost certainly going to be included in the FY 2026 spending for DHS. The reason for that is that there will not be a separate DHS spending bill (too many controversies surrounding DHS components), nor is it likely to be included in another minibus. So we are almost certainly going to see DHS funding included in a full year continuing resolution, and that CR will continue (that’s the ‘C’ in CR) spending levels set before CFATS was allowed to expire. That funding will mostly get reprogrammed (most likely to immigration enforcement), but some vestige of chemical security will get funded, including (hopefully) ChemLock.

Still, when all is said and done, we really need Congress to step up and pass some sort of chemical security authorization bill. Standing CISA back up would be difficult from both a legislative and regulatory perspectives, but maybe a formal authorization of an upgraded (but still voluntary) ChemLock program could be possible.

New FY 2026 Spending Minibus Rule Hearing 1-6-26

Yesterday the House Rules Committee added a new (not yet introduced) spending bill to the slate of bills to be considered in this evening’s rule hearing. The bill would combine three (CJS, EWR, and IER) of the nine outstanding spending bills in a single bill. Since the House has already passed a standalone EWR bill (HR 4553), I would assume (not yet having perused the 414 page bill in any kind of detail) that this minibus is somewhat less partisan than the three bills originally introduced in the House.

Interestingly, the two other spending bills are potentially being considered in the Senate as part of their possible minibus consideration of HR 4016.

The big question in the 119^th Congress is always going to be if a spending bill is going to bipartisan enough to pass in the Senate. If it is it will have a hard time passing in the House under a rule because of the tiny majority the Republicans have combined with the willingness of the spending hawks to vote against any thing less than a strictly partisan bill. Or we could just see the Republicans passing partisan bills and seeing them amended in the Senate to a more moderate version that would then pass in the House with Democratic support. Of course, there are just 25 days left until the current continuing resolution expires.

This bill has not yet made its way to the Majority Leader’s weekly schedule beyond the broad statement that: “Consideration of items related to FY26 Appropriations are possible.”