GovConJudicata Weekly Debrief (7/22–26)

This week's Weekly Debrief covers space policy, SpaceX's Falcon 9 faillure, CACI's protest of $100m Navy award, Howard becomes first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon, and the 2025 NDAA.

Space

SpaceNews – Senate spending bill pushes back on proposed NASA mission cuts

• "A Senate appropriations bill closely follows the administration’s request for NASA in fiscal year 2025 but with provisions about several missions the agency is seeking to cancel or curtail. The Senate Appropriations Committee released the commerce, justice and science (CJS) appropriations bill and report July 26, one day after the full committee favorably reported it on a 26–3 vote. The bill offers $25.434 billion for NASA, $50 million above the administration’s request. A House bill, by contrast, cut $205 million from the request."

Space.com – SpaceX finds cause of Falcon 9 failure, eyes return to flight as soon as July 27

• "SpaceX says it has identified and fixed the problem that caused its Falcon 9 rocket to fail during a launch earlier this month. That failure occurred on July 11, as a Falcon 9 carried 20 of SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellites toward low Earth orbit. The rocket's first stage performed normally that day, but its upper stage sprang a leak of liquid oxygen, which prevented it from conducting an orbit-raising burn as planned; the Starlink satellites were deployed too low as a result and came back down to Earth in relatively short order, burning up in our planet's thick atmosphere."

Contracting

WashTech – CACI challenges $100M Navy SETA award

• "CACI International is challenging a $100 million award that went to Serco's North American subsidiary and has laid out claims of a bait-and-switch by the latter. The Navy picked Serco for a range of support generally known as SETA, or systems engineering and technical assistance work. The contract supports the Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Shipyard and Naval industrial base efforts."

Defense

ABCNews – Howard University becomes first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon

• "Howard University becomes the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to partner with the Pentagon for military technology research featuring a five-year, $90 million contract."

FedNewsNet – Some highlights of provisions in this year’s NDAA that could affect contractors

• "As with every year, hundreds of amendments are introduced to both the Senate and House version of the National Defense Authorization Act. Obviously not all of them make it, but they are debated nonetheless. To find out what amendments those on the industry side are keyed in on, Federal News Network Executive producer Eric White spoke to David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin."

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