NASA’s Crew-12 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California this morning, bringing the 237-day mission to an end. Their replacements on Crew-13 arrived a week ago and the busy cadence on the International Space Station continues with a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship departing tomorrow and a SpaceX Cargo Dragon arriving next week.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 4-10, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until after the midterm elections, except for pro forma sessions.
NASA’s 13th operational Crew Dragon mission arrived at the International Space Station today about 8 hours after launch. That’s the fastest trip on a SpaceX Dragon thanks to an opportune orbital alignment between the launch pad and the ISS after a recent reboost. Crew-12 will depart as soon as October 5, weather permitting, after a short handover. By coincidence, today is the 68th anniversary of NASA opening its doors.
U.S. Space Force Lieutenant General David Miller, Jr. has been nominated as the next Commander of U.S. Space Command, succeeding Gen. Stephen Whiting who will retire early next year.
Two years after Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft landed in the New Mexico desert without NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, Boeing and NASA said today it will not be ready to fly astronauts again until 2028. An uncrewed flight test is expected no sooner than the end of this year, but they want another year or more to evaluate those results before putting people aboard.
The flight did not go exactly as planned, but SpaceX’s Starship Integrated Flight Test-14 did make it into orbit for the first time today and deployed 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites. One of the six second stage engines cut off early and although SpaceX proceeded with the orbital insertion burn, they decided to bring Starship back to Earth without completing all six orbits that were planned.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 27-October 3, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House is in recess until after the midterm elections, except for pro forma sessions.
The bold mission to extend the lifetime of NASA’s Swift observatory is coming to an end in the next 24 hours. Almost exactly one year after NASA signed a contract with Katalyst Space to grapple Swift and boost its deteriorating orbit with the LINK spacecraft, LINK itself will reenter with Swift following in coming months. Though ultimately unsuccessful, NASA and Katalyst feel the mission broke through some barriers, leaving lessons for the future.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 20-26, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House is in recess until after the midterm elections, except for pro forma sessions.
SpaceX will attempt to put Starship into orbit for the first time next week pending regulatory approval. If all goes according to plan, Integrated Flight Test-14 or IFT-14 will orbit Earth six times, dropping off 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down in the ocean west of Chile. The company is targeting Tuesday for the launch. [Update, Sept 17: the date has slipped to September 28.]