The first woman to head NASA’s human spaceflight enterprise will retire at the end of April, NASA announced today. Kathy Lueders will be succeeded by her deputy, former astronaut Ken Bowersox, effective May 1. Bowersox has extensive experience not only flying in space, but in top positions in what is now the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com during the week of March 19-26, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on the titles to read the entire articles.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 26-April 1, 2023. The House and Senate are in session this week at least through Thursday before both head out for a two-week spring break.
Canada now has joined Japan and the European Space Agency in committing to continued support of the International Space Station through 2030. The announcement was made today during President Biden’s visit to Canada where he addressed the Canadian Parliament and highlighted the imminent announcement of the Artemis II crew, which will include a Canadian astronaut.
Blue Origin said today the failure of the New Shepard-23 launch last September was due to an engine nozzle failure. No one was injured. The capsule was carrying a variety of scientific payloads, not people, and landed safely. Those payloads will fly again on the next New Shepard flight. The FAA says its investigation remains open while it reviews Blue Origin’s report and FAA approval is needed before that next flight takes place.
The head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate urged her science community colleagues to stick together as pressures mount on the science budget. Despite a record level of funding in the FY2024 budget request, inflation, lingering supply chain issues, and the monetary demands of high priority flagship missions mean some projects will be delayed. Rather than focusing on what is not in the request, however, she wants the community to rally around what is there.
A group of European dignitaries is calling for European autonomy in human and robotic space exploration. Established by ESA but conducting its work independently, the 12-person High Level Advisory Group insists that Europe must step up and ensure independent access to and use of space or be dependent on others, with economic and geopolitical consequences. Among the recommendations is for “independent and sustainable” European human landing missions to the Moon within 10 years.
The world’s first 3D printed rocket, Relativity Space’s Terran-1, lifted off the launch pad tonight on the third try. Although a second stage anomaly meant it did not reach orbit, company officials were delighted it got as far as it did, passing through the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure, or Max Q.
In a letter to the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson spelled out the “devastating and potentially unrecoverable” impacts if the discretionary portion of the federal budget, which includes NASA, is held to its FY2022 level as House Republicans are proposing.
In lieu of our weekly emails, on Mondays SpacePolicyOnline.com now will post here on the website and circulate via Twitter (@SpcPlcyOnline) and Facebook (Facebook.com/SpacePolicyOnline) a roundup of the articles we published the previous week to make them easy to find. This is the first edition of the Weekly Roundup and includes two weeks (March 6-19, 2023) to ensure continuity from when the emails ended. The articles are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on the title to read the story.