NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine held a town hall at NASA Headquarters on 2019-01-29 that was broadcast to the agency’s field centers on NASA Television.

The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress operates a national security space program that is developing recommendations for how the Pentagon could work better with the commercial space industry.

The national security space program has hosted three off-the-record roundtables in Washington and in Los Angeles and plans additional roundtables.

A proposal to establish a U.S. Space Force is being finalized and will be sent to the White House for approval before going to Capitol Hill with the fiscal year 2020 budget request.

President Donald Trump issued a 2018-12-18 memo instructing the Pentagon to establish a United States Space Command as a functional Unified Combatant Command.

Harris Corp. reported a nine percent overall revenue increase to $1,700,000,000 for the quarter compared to last year.

Harris Corp. reported an 11 percent increase in Space and Intelligence Systems revenue to $513,000,000 driven largely by military and civil space programs.

Harris Corp. and L3 Technologies agreed to merge in October in a transaction valued at $34,000,000,000 and plan to complete the merger by mid-2019.

HSAT, Harris' first smallsat, launched 2018-11-29 aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Two other classified Harris-built smallsats launched in 2018.

L3 Technologies' Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems business increased net sales 14 percent to $1,220,000,000 for the quarter ended 2018-12-31.

L3 Technologies reported an eight percent increase in net sales to $2,800,000,000 for the quarter compared to last year.

Harris Corp. received awards of over $350,000,000 over the past three years to develop and produce 17 satellites for five different customers.

The five-week partial U.S. government shutdown ended 2019-01-25 after President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution funding the government until 2019-02-15.

L3 Technologies' Electronic Systems business increased net sales 11 percent to $735,000,000 for the quarter ended 2018-12-31.

In 2017, L3 Technologies sold a facility in San Carlos, California where it built traveling wave tubes for $64,000,000 and the facility had 314 employees.

L3 Technologies' Communications and Networked Systems division generated $816,000,000 in net sales for the quarter ended 2018-12-31, a three percent decrease compared to the same quarter last year.

Closing the San Carlos facility led to the loss of specialized talent for building traveling wave tube signal amplifiers.

Opportunity operated for more than 5,000 days prior to losing contact in June.

NASA is currently funded only through 2019-02-15 and faces the risk of another shutdown if a budget deal is not reached, which could delay a decision by NASA Headquarters on Opportunity’s future.

The Thirty Meter Telescope will use nearly 500 small mirror segments to create a 30-meter-diameter primary mirror.

Securing $1,000,000,000 in NSF funding for the U.S. ELT Program is expected to be a multi-year process that will likely require lobbying to increase the NSF’s overall budget.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 and was last serviced in 2009.

NASA has previously supported ground-based observatories including the Keck Observatory and the Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea.

SPD-4 requires the secretary of defense to conduct periodic reviews and recommend a timeline for spinning off the Space Force into its own military department.

The Pentagon is finalizing a legislative proposal and budget request for fiscal year 2020 to submit to the White House that recommends creating a Space Force with its own four-star chief of staff and a civilian undersecretary of space under the Department of the Air Force.

A draft space policy directive orders the Defense Department to establish a U.S. Space Force as a sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces within the Department of the Air Force.

SpaceX performed 13 booster landings during launches supported by Air Force Space Command in 2018.

The 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base supported 13 launches and three landings in 2018.

United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems collectively received $2,300,000,000 in Air Force funding to ensure their domestically produced commercial rockets can meet national security launch requirements.

The Atlas V rocket uses the Russian-built RD-180 engine for its main stage.

Congress included a provision in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting the Defense Department from awarding or renewing EELV contracts after 2022 for rockets that use Russian engines.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their launch operations and created United Launch Alliance, which operated as a monopoly from 2006 until 2015.

The 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station supported 20 launches and 10 landings in 2018.

In 2018 Air Force Space Command supported 33 satellite launches including nine military launches, five civil launches, and 19 commercial launches.

DARPA awarded satellite bus contracts for Blackjack to Airbus, Blue Canyon Technologies, and Telesat.

DARPA's goal for Blackjack is to launch a small experimental constellation of up to 20 satellites to test the concept.

Blackjack plans to use commercial satellite buses matched with military payloads.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a union representing employees of a number of NASA contractors, planned a protest on 2019-01-26 in Cape Canaveral, Florida focused on obtaining back pay for contractors affected by the shutdown.

Weeks of acrimonious debate preceding the continuing resolution centered on including $5,700,000,000 for border security funding sought by the White House.

President Trump signed a continuing resolution late on 2019-01-25 restoring funding to government agencies whose appropriations lapsed when the prior continuing resolution expired on 2018-12-22.

The Huntsville factory will create more than 300 jobs.

Blue Origin held a groundbreaking ceremony in Huntsville, Alabama on 2019-01-25 to mark the start of construction of a factory for building BE-4 engines.

Blue Origin and NASA Marshall signed a Space Act Agreement in July 2018 to cover suitability analysis and preliminary facility preparations for potential use of the test stand.

Blue Origin will complete development of its BE-4 engine later 2019.

The BE-4 engine uses liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas propellants and is capable of producing up to 249,476 kg-force of thrust.

United Launch Alliance selected the BE-4 engine for its Vulcan rocket in September 2018.

Blue Origin announced plans in June 2017 to build a BE-4 engine factory in Huntsville contingent on United Launch Alliance selecting the engine for its Vulcan rocket.

The Huntsville factory will build dozens of BE-4 engines per year for both ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn vehicles.

Blue Origin will install a new version of the BE-4 engine at its West Texas test site with plans to test to 100 percent power.