ULA President Tory Bruno is optimistic the company will reach its goal of two launches a month by the end of 2025. That’s later than planned and total launches for this year will be just nine, but liftoff of the first U.S. Space Force mission on ULA’s new Vulcan rocket next week will kick off a burst of activity that extends into 2026 and 2027. The growing number of launches from Florida’s Space Coast already is creating congestion and Bruno worries about the impact of SpaceX’s plans to launch Starship from there as many as 44 times a year.

…

Read More Read More

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy has approved moving a space shuttle to Houston in accordance with language in the reconcilation act. NASA will only confirm that a decision was made, not what it is.  Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), however, issued a press release thanking Duffy and since he introduced legislation to move Space Shuttle Discovery to Johnson Space Center the implication seems clear.  Discovery is currently at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Chantilly, VA. The NASM says it owns Discovery and has not been contacted by NASA.

…

Read More Read More

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy wants a nuclear fission reactor on the Moon to support sustained U.S. presence there. Asserting that the United States is in a Moon race with China, he insists that NASA must establish a base at the South Pole and “claim that for America.” Meanwhile, the chairmen of NASA’s House and Senate oversight committees wrote to Duffy today asking when and how he will spend the $10 billion Congress provided for NASA in the reconciliation bill that was enacted a month ago.

…

Read More Read More

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of August 3-9, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until September 2 except for pro forma sessions.

…

Read More Read More

Crew-11 had better luck today. Yesterday their launch was scrubbed one minute before liftoff as storm clouds arrived at just the wrong moment. Today looked like it was going to be a repeat, but they were able to get off in time and are on their way to the International Space Station arriving at 3:00 am ET tomorrow.

…

Read More Read More

Weather prevented Crew-11 from getting off the launch pad today, but they will try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy was at the attempted launch and met with his Russian counterpart, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Bakanov. It was the first in-person meeting between the top NASA and Russian space agency heads in eight years.

…

Read More Read More

The Senate Commerce Committee approved the nominations of Neil Jacobs and Taylor Jordan to top positions at NOAA today. The nominations now must be voted on by the full Senate. No mention was made of the abrupt actions taken by the Trump Administration last Friday putting two other NOAA officials on administrative leave without explanation. The committee also approved Sen. Cruz’s Space Exploration Research Act.

…

Read More Read More

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of July 27-August 2, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House is in recess until September 2 except for pro forma sessions.

…

Read More Read More

The options for NASA employees to voluntarily leave the agency to meet Trump Administration workforce reduction targets ended yesterday. NASA reports that just over 21 percent took the Deferred Resignation Program, about 3,000 employees. The agency estimates its remaining civil servant workforce will be about 14,000, a sharp reduction but still higher than the Administration’s target. Involuntary Reductions-in-Force (RIFs) may follow. The space community and Congress are concerned about how NASA will execute its programs with so much experience walking out the door especially since Congress is poised to reject the deep cuts to NASA proposed by President Trump.

…

Read More Read More

The House Appropriations Committee delayed markup of the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science bill that was scheduled for today, but released the report detailing how the committee wants NASA to spend the $24.8 billion recommended by the CJS subcommittee last week. That would keep NASA at its current spending level and is $6 billion more than proposed by the Trump Administration. Among the many differences is continued funding for the Mars Sample Return mission that the Administration wants to terminate. Congressional staffers at a National Academies meeting today expressed concern, however, about whether money Congress appropriates will be spent as intended.

…

Read More Read More