Despite agreement among the four key congressional leaders on top level funding for FY2024, the threat of a partial government shutdown a week from now is as real as ever.  The small group of ultra conservative House Republicans who deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy and put Mike Johnson in his place are demanding Johnson now reject the deal he just agreed to. The existing Continuing Resolution has two expiration dates, January 19 for some agencies and February 2 for others. Another CR will be needed by Friday to keep that first set funded, but whether they can do even that is anyone’s guess.

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In a change of command ceremony in Colorado Springs today, Gen. Stephen Whiting took over the reins at U.S. Space Command from Gen. James Dickinson. The handover was delayed several months by Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) blockade of military promotions for most of last year.  Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks praised Dickinson for staying in his position until Whiting could be confirmed, delaying his own retirement. Hicks’s main message was that while China and Russia seek to turn space into a warfighting domain, the United States is committed to preventing conflict through deterrence.

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NASA announced today that the Artemis II mission that was to launch this year and send astronauts around the Moon for the first time in five decades is being delayed to September 2025. Artemis III, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface, similarly is delayed for about a year, from the end of 2025 to September 2026. The revised schedule is due to technical problems with existing systems and development delays with SpaceX’s Human Landing System and Axiom Space’s lunar spacesuits. The House authorization committee that oversees NASA will hold a hearing next week to learn more about the causes and costs of the delay.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com over the last three weeks, December 18, 2023 – January 8, 2024, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

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Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is in trouble. Just hours after separating from the rocket that successfully sent it into space, a propulsion failure doomed the mission. Peregrine was to be the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the Moon since Apollo and the first U.S. commercial lunar lander. NASA is being philosophical about the problems with this first of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions. The next in the series, from another company, is scheduled to launch in mid-February. [Updated January 8, 10:50 pm ET]

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Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is on its way to the Moon. Liftoff of the United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan-Centaur rocket went perfectly early this morning. Built through a Public-Private Partnership with NASA, this is the first U.S. commercial lunar lander and the first U.S. lander since the Apollo program. Landing is scheduled for February 23.  Peregrine is just one of several landers already enroute or soon to launch this year. A Japanese lander and perhaps another U.S. commercial lander may get there first.

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The United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan-Centaur rocket is on the launch pad ready to send Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander to the Moon in about 9 hours. Not only is this the first launch of ULA’s new rocket, but Peregrine will be the first U.S. spacecraft to soft land on the Moon since the end of the Apollo program and the first U.S. commercial lander. A total of six Vulcan launches are planned this year so a lot is riding on success tonight, but hopes are high because ULA has a 100 percent mission success record for its current Atlas and Delta rockets.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 7-14, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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NASA announced this morning that the United Arab Emirates is joining the Artemis campaign to return astronauts to the Moon. The UAE will provide an airlock for the Gateway space station that will orbit the Moon. NASA once hoped Russia would provide the airlock as part of a continuation of the multilateral partnership that built and operates the International Space Station, but not after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now the UAE has stepped up in another expansion of its evolving space program. Sending a UAE astronaut to Gateway is part of the agreement.

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NASA said today the Biden Administration will consult with the Navajo Nation about its concerns that human remains are being placed on the Moon on landers developed through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The Moon is sacred to the Navajo and putting human remains there is a sacrilege to them. Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is a commercial mission, however, and NASA has no control over non-NASA payloads that are aboard. The chairman of the company sending the remains, Celestis, insists it is a service of celebration, not desecration.

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