The Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship loaded with 11,000 pounds of experiments and supplies for the International Space Station will not dock tomorrow morning as planned. Launched on Sunday, the NG-23 spacecraft experienced propulsion anomalies today as it raised its orbit to match that of the ISS. NASA and Northrop Grumman are assessing what steps are needed next. A new arrival date is to be determined.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 14-20, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
The House Appropriations Committee approved the FY2026 Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill last evening including funding for NASA. The committee disagreed with the Trump Administration’s proposal to cut NASA’s budget by 24.3 percent and instead keeps the agency at roughly the same level as FY2025 — $24.8 billion. The House committee has a stronger emphasis on human exploration than its Senate counterpart, but the agency fares much better on both sides of Capitol Hill than it did in the president’s request.
The House passed the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act this evening, authorizing funding for the U.S. Space Force and other components of the Department of Defense. Only a fraction of the amendments offered to the NDAA were allowed to be debated on the floor. One that was not cleared would have overturned a requirement in the reconciliation bill to move a space vehicle — likely the Space Shuttle Discovery — from Virginia to Houston.
A rock sample discovered by NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover last year may hold proof that life once existed on Mars, but scientists need to get the sample back to Earth to confirm it. The finding that the sample shows the best evidence so far of past microbial life on the Red Planet was revealed last year and published today in Nature after a rigorous peer review process. It still is just a possibility, though. Analysis by more sophisticated tools in laboratories here on Earth is the only way to be absolutely certain.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 7-13, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Reacting to comments at yesterday’s Senate hearing on the space race with China, acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy forcefully exclaimed today that he fully expects the United States to get astronauts back on the Moon before China gets there. Amit Kshatriya, Duffy’s choice to be the top civil servant at the agency, will ensure that happens. Duffy also said he will remain as acting Administrator for the “foreseeable future” and is not wasting any time while waiting for a permanent administrator to arrive.
NASA’s Artemis program to return American astronauts to the Moon won strong support from the Senate Commerce Committee today. Senators from both parties issued a clarion call to get Americans back on the Moon and establish a sustainable presence before China puts taikonauts there. That means staying the course with the program as it is, which is at odds with Trump Administration plans. Also today, NASA elevated the man in charge of the agency’s Moon-to-Mars program, Amit Kshatriya, to the highest level civil servant position at the agency.
President Trump announced today he is moving the headquarters of U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama. The decision has been expected since he returned to office, restoring a decision made in his first term, but overturned by President Biden. The battle between Alabama and Colorado has been waged over the past four years on bipartisan grounds, with the state delegations holding firm despite political differences on other issues. Trump said a “big factor” in his decision was that Colorado allows mail-in voting and thus has “corrupt” elections.
An Executive Order issued by President Trump to exclude NASA and other agencies from collective bargaining rights does so by designating them as having intelligence or national security as a primary function. That is quite a departure from NASA’s historical status as the nation’s premier civil space agency. Apart from the Executive Order’s effect on the approximately 50 percent of NASA workers now represented by unions, what impact, if any, it will have on how NASA is viewed domestically and internationally remains to be seen.