Launch director is being briefed on a worsening hydrogen leak at the Space Launch System's launchpad, the first hitch to pop up in an otherwise clean launch countdown. "Only way to fix it at this moment is to send a red crew to the pad," NASA spox says. Two technicians, the red team, are going out to the pad to tighten some nuts for about 15 minutes, then leave the pad.

Russia's Yuri Borisov clarifying his remarks on ISS withdrawal: "We intend to do this not from 2024, but after 2024... these are two big differences... We just said that after 2024 we start the exit process. Whether it will be in the middle of 2024 or in 2025 - it all depends" He said withdrawal depends mainly on the Russian segment's structural health and that engineers believe an "avalanche-like" process of technical failures on the RU segment could occur after 2024, which prompted Roscosmos to consider transitioning to its own national space station

NASA's safety advisory panel in its quarterly meeting says there's "significant concern" about the low number of ULA's Atlas 5 rockets available to launch Starliner and that certifying Altas 5 successor Vulcan for human spaceflight could take years. Panel notes SpaceX's decision to cut off Crew Dragon manufacturing might be concerning and urges NASA to study how many times Crew Dragon can/should be reused and whether SpaceX will need to start building more again in the future.

“Getting a valve maker or propulsion system provider to write down, 'Yeah, I screwed that up' ... that's never gonna happen."

Boeing and Starliner’s propulsion system provider Aerojet Rocketdyne are privately feuding over the spacecraft’s valve issues reuters.com/business/aeros… Getting a lot of questions about the last graf on NearSpace president Timothy Lachenmeier's leg injury in 2017.

NASA plans to award SpaceX three additional commercial crew flights to the ISS under the company's CCtCap contract. SpaceX will be on contract for nine post-certification missions in total SpaceX, having flown three crewed missions under the contract already, is on track to launch its sixth and final Crew Dragon mission by March 2023, while Boeing's Starliner, marred by technical issues, won't fly the first of its six contract missions until at least late 2022.

NASA picks three companies to develop initial designs for commercial space stations, dolling out $415.6 million total:

Blue Origin, $130 million
Nanoracks, $160 million
Northrop Grumman, $125.6 million Axiom, which is building private modules to add onto the ISS under a different NASA agreement, says it "declined to bid" for the Commercial LEO Destinations funds but "warmly congratulates the winners and looks forward to the shared vision of a thriving commercial network in LEO"

The first National Space Council meeting under Biden is about to start Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, is introducing @VP Harris.

Federal Claims court releases a public version of its decision on the Blue Origin lunar lander lawsuit.

Blue lost its challenge, the judge says, because its lander proposal "was priced well above NASA’s available funding and was itself noncompliant" with NASA's award rules In its 47 page decision, the judge found that NASA "provided a thorough, reasoned evaluation" of the lunar lander proposals, and "NASA’s conduct throughout the procurement process was not contrary to law."

Re: reports of a Russian ASAT test, USSPACECOM says it "is aware of a debris-generating event in outer space" and is "working to characterize the debris field and will continue to ensure all space-faring nations have the information necessary to maneuver satellites if impacted." Asked about the debris clouds that forced ISS astronauts into their spacecraft last night/early this morning, Space Command says it's working with NASA and the State Department "concerning these reports and will provide an update in the near future."

SpaceX’s Bill Gerst says Crew Dragon’s toilet mechanics were redesigned after the toilet issues on the Inspiration4 mission. A tube that sends urine into a container broke off during the mission and leaked into a fan which sprayed the urine in an area beneath the capsule floor. Gerst says the crew didn’t notice anything during flight; it only affected the internal section under the floor. Redesign involves a fully welded system with no joints that could come “unglued” like the faulty Inspiration4 system did.

NASA's Kennedy Space Center is under an emergency lockdown due to "an unknown event happening at the NASA Headquarters building," per a hastily written email KSC's safety chief sent to employees just now. Staff urged to shelter in place, all gates to the center are closed. Per spokesperson, the center's security force evacuated KSC's administrative building after receiving a "telephone threat." There doesn't seem to be any threat to personnel now and the evacuation/shelter order has just been lifted

NASA "reluctantly agrees" to extend the stay on SpaceX's HLS contract by a week bc the 7GB+ of case-related docs in the Blue Origin suit keeps causing DOJ's Adobe software to crash and key NASA staff were busy at Space Symposium this week, causing delays to a filing deadline. lol Under NASA's voluntary pause to SpaceX's contract — which it only did if Blue Origin agreed to move litigation quickly — the end date was November 1st. Now it looks like it'll be November 8th.

This is insane

https://twitter.com/blue_bnd/status/1273670358370004992

Here's Gardner holding a "for sale" sign after retrieving Palapa B2 and Westar 6 in a badass photo taken by Joe Allen