SpaceX’s sixth Starship Integrated Flight Test, IFT-6, may not have thrilled everyone with another spectacular booster catch, but the hour-long mission demonstrated advancements in the vehicle’s performance that pushes it another step along the path to eventual operational flights.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com from November 11-17, 2024 including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 17-24, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Two Democratic Senators with considerable influence over space program policy and spending are urging an investigation into reports that Elon Musk is in contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite U.S. sanctions against Putin. They also are concerned about DOD’s “overreliance” on SpaceX for national security space activities. …
A U.S.-Russian Joint Commission that reviews safety on the International Space Station was not able to reach agreement on what is causing air leaks on the Russian segment of the ISS or the potential risks. Meeting in September in Moscow, Russian and NASA members of the Joint Commission saw the situation quite differently. NASA considers the risks to be much higher than Russia and is implementing preventive measures when the hatch to the area where the leaks are occuring is open.
JPL Director Laurie Leshin announced another workforce reduction today, the second this year. Cuts to NASA’s overall science budget due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act coupled with uncertainty about the future of the Mars Sample Return mission are deeply affecting the laboratory, but Leshin said she believes they will be at a “more stable” level now.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com from November 4-10, 2024 including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 10-16, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate return to work this week.
President-elect Trump’s decisive win on Tuesday and Republican advances in the Senate will usher in a changed political landscape next year. Which party will control the House is still up in the air, though Republicans seem likely to keep that chamber, cementing all three levers of power. But that’s next year. There’s still the rest of this Congress to go. On Tuesday, Congress returns to work with the same to-do list they had in September — passing FY2025 appropriations and other critical pieces of legislation.
The three NASA Crew-8 astronauts who returned to Earth last month firmly declined to answer questions today about who was hospitalized and why after splashdown. Astronaut Michael Barratt, a physician and member of the crew, spoke for all three and insisted privacy considerations and processes that need to be followed preclude providing any more information now, but they will explain more “in the fullness of time.”