There’s no reason why the International Space Station can’t remain active well past 2020, Boeing officials told members of the media Tuesday in Arlington, Va. In fact, the company recently uploaded nine million lines of software code to the space station, and they have plans to upgrade its environmental control station and also add high-definition TVs, said John Elbon, Boeing’s vice president of space exploration. There also is a study under way to certify the station through 2028, he said. “We are undergoing a change in space exploration. After going through a very stable period of shuttle launches, we went through several years of national debate of what’s next for space,” said Elbon. “We finally settled on a plan of continuing to use the station and focusing on human exploration into deep space.” Atlantis, the final space shuttle, landed last July at Cape Canaveral, Fla., closing out three decades of US shuttle flights. Thursday marks the 31st anniversary of the first shuttle flight.
House lawmakers unveiled a new reconciliation package July 15 with $60 billion for defense, $290 billion less than the Pentagon has been seeking, a day after a Senate vote to advance the annual defense policy bill failed—developments that show the perilous state of the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for fiscal 2027.