President Trump and congressional leaders left their meeting at the White House this afternoon with no deal to avert a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow night. If nothing changes, agencies like NASA will have to pause all non-essential operations at 12:01 am Wednesday after FY2025 ends with no appropriations for FY2026. Also today, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee issued a report asserting the White House has been requiring NASA to adhere to proposed FY2026 budget cuts even though Congress has not acted on NASA’s appropriations bill yet.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 28-October 4, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The congressional schedule is in flux. The Senate will be in session Monday and Tuesday. The House will not. What happens after that depends on government shutdown negotiations.

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NASA said today they are requiring Sierra Space to conduct a free flyer demonstration of the Dream Chaser spacecraft before the first cargo mission to the International Space Station. The contractual requirement that NASA buy seven cargo flights is also eliminated. Dream Chaser has yet to make a spaceflight after more than a decade of development and the demonstration flight is not even expected until the end of 2026. Sierra Space called the changes a “strategic transition.”

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Today the four Artemis II crew members announced the name they have chosen for their Orion capsule — Integrity. During an hour-long news conference, they conveyed readiness for their mission to fly around the Moon a few months from now and hope that it might bring about “peace and hope for all humankind.”

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NASA introduced its 24th class of astronauts today, six women and four men. It is the first astronaut class with more women than men and the first with an American who already has made an orbital spaceflight — Anna Menon, a biomedical engineer who was a member of Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Dawn crew in 2024. The 10 astronaut candidates will train for two years before becoming eligible for NASA missions to Earth orbit, the Moon and beyond.

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NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel is warning that SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) could be “years late” for the Artemis III mission that is supposed to take place in mid-2027. The assessment comes after three ASAP members visited SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, TX and met with top SpaceX officials. While they were quite impressed with SpaceX’s manufacturing and operations tempo, they nonetheless found the schedule for HLS is “significantly challenged.”

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 21-27, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions.

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Unless Congress and the President can reach agreement in the next 10 days, there will be a government shutdown on October 1. Both sides say they do not want that to happen, but both are digging in their heels. Anything can happen at this point, but here is where the situation stands as of September 21, 2025.

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NASA’s much-anticipated but imperiled VIPER lunar rover got some good news today. More than a year after NASA announced it was terminating the mission even though the rover is completely built, it may have a second lease on life. NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin to take initial steps that, if successful, could lead to VIPER flying on Blue Origin’s Blue Moon MK1 lander instead of Astrobotic’s Griffin.

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NASA and Northrop Grumman announced this evening that the NG-23 Cygnus cargo spacecraft is back on track enroute to the International Space Station.  NG-23 was supposed to arrive there this morning, but experienced a propulsion anomaly yesterday. The problem has been resolved and it will get there just one day late. [Update, September 18: NG23 successfully berthed to the ISS this morning.]

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