Advantage: United States

Colorado Springs, Colo. A wide-ranging space bill unveiled Tuesday at the Space Symposium here would change the priority for US-made rocket engines, and commercialize Air Force Satellite Control Network operations by January 2018. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), would give US companies an advantage by mandating that after Dec. 31, 2022, the Pentagon would consider any bid for a US-built rocket engine as 25 percent less than the total bid. Additionally, the bill would give $30.2 million to the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center, change NASA’s objectives to focus more on “pioneering space,” and authorize the Secretary of Transportation to gather data to provide space situational awareness services to the federal government and others. It also requires the President to establish a national executive committee on weather to coordinate weather-related matters across the federal government, and funds Air Force space survivability and surveillance research, development, testing?, and evaluation.