Tory Bruno, President and CEO of the United Launch Alliance, posted on X today that the first launch of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket “likely” will not take place on Christmas Eve as planned. The primary payload is a commercial lunar lander and it can only be launched on certain days when the Earth and Moon are properly aligned. Bruno mentioned that the next launch window is in January, suggesting a delay until then, though it was not a definitive statement.

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House and Senate conferees on the FY2024 National Defense Authorization Act agreed that no funds may be spent on new headquarters for U. S. Space Command until June 30, 2024 when reports are due from the Government Accountability Office and the Air Force Inspector General on how President Biden made his July 2023 decision to keep it in Colorado. The bitterly contested issue has split the Alabama and Colorado congressional delegations for almost three years since then-President Trump decided to move it from Colorado to Alabama in the final days of his presidency.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of December 10-16, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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The Government Accountability Office wants the FAA to improve how it investigates space launch mishaps, especially how it decides whether to do an investigation itself or allow the operator to do it. Historically operators are allowed to investigate their own mishaps under FAA supervision, but over the course of 50 mishaps since 2000, GAO found the FAA has not evaluated whether that’s an effective approach. GAO also champions creating a mechanism for sharing lessons learned among operators even though efforts in the past have not succeeded.

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The White House National Space Council’s Users’ Advisory Group is recommending that a single agency be designated to oversee the regulation of novel space activities, the so-called “mission authorization” function. Composed primarily of industry representatives, the UAG provides external advice to the Space Council, which is chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris. The recommendation is at odds with what the Space Council itself recently proposed — a bifurcated arrangement where mission authorization is split between the Department of Commerce and Department of Transportation.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com last week, November 27-December 3, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of December 3-9, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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The Government Accountability Office’s latest report on NASA’s Artemis program is skeptical that the agency can return astronauts to the lunar surface in 2025, the current plan. If development of the Human Landing System and lunar spacesuits, both being procured as Public-Private Partnerships, follows the average timeline for NASA programs, early 2027 is more likely.

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The European Space Agency announced today they are targeting June 15-July 31, 2024 for the first launch of Ariane 6 following a successful engine test last week. Europe is in a launch vehicle quandary right now with virtually no independent access to space after decades of relying on their own rockets. Ariane 6 is years late, but now months closer to first flight.

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The House Science, Space and Technology Committee approved the Commercial Space Act today on a strictly party-line basis, but the top Republican and top Democrat on the committee agreed to work together to find common ground before the bill proceeds to a vote by the full House. Today’s action completed a markup that was sidetracked two weeks ago when the White House suddenly produced its own proposed “mission authorization” language just before the markup began.

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