A very large Chinese rocket is about to make an uncontrolled reentry, posing a threat to large portions of the globe. The Long March-5B launched China’s Wentian space station module into orbit on July 24. Like two predecessors, this rocket does not have onboard systems to direct its reentry into an unpopulated area. The U.S. Aerospace Corporation is closely monitoring it and periodically publishing updated estimates using available data. At the moment the prediction is sometime between Saturday and Sunday morning EDT.

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The new head of Russia’s space agency reiterated today what his predecessor said in the past that Russia plans to leave the International Space Station and build its own space station. The new director, Yuri Borisov, said the decision has been made to leave the ISS “after 2024,” but was not specific about when. The United States and Russia just signed an agreement to fly each other’s crew members to and from the ISS through June 2025. The White House and NASA stressed they have received no official notification of Russian plans to withdraw.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of July 24-30, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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China launched the second of three modules for its Tiangong-3 space station early this morning EDT.  Named Wentian, it is one of two laboratory modules that together with the Tianhe core module launched last year will comprise the approximately 70 Metric Ton space station. Still small compared to the 420 MT International Space Station, it nonetheless is a significant step forward for China’s human spaceflight program.

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NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel warned this week that NASA’s effort to get the private sector to build commercial space stations to replace the International Space Station is on a “precarious trajectory.” At the same time, ISS is “feeling its age” and coping with greatly increased warnings about potential collisions with space debris, especially from Russia’s antisatellite test.

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The revised version of the NASA authorization bill being considered by the Senate right now is quite different from what passed previously. For example, although it still strongly supports the Artemis initiative to return humans to the Moon, it no longer authorizes $10 billion over the next five years for a second Human Landing System. Now part of the CHIPS+ bill, it could pass the Senate before the August recess.

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NASA is targeting three days at the end of August and early September for the first launch of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft — Artemis I.  Officials stressed today the dates are tentative, but it is at least a marker for when the system, years late and billions over budget, might finally make its first flight.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of July 17-24, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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Today saw two big announcements affecting U.S.-Russian International Space Station cooperation. First came the news that Dmitry Rogozin, the vituperative head of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, was removed from his job. Then NASA issued a statement confirming that at long last it had reached a seat-swap agreement with Roscosmos where U.S. astronauts will launch to ISS on Russian spacecraft and Russian cosmonauts on U.S. spacecraft on a no-exchange-of-funds basis. It is not clear whether the two are related or coincidental.

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NASA astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner John Mather is “thrilled and relieved” with the images and data coming from the James Webb Space Telescope. Often heralded as the “father” of NASA’s newest great observatory, Mather has been with the project from the beginning in 1995. His sentiments undoubtedly are shared by the hundreds of scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, lobbyists and politicians who stuck with JWST over the decades and now see the fruits of their resolve, including more images released today.

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