Firefly Aerospace’s first mission to the Moon was a complete success according to the company and its customer, NASA.  The Blue Ghost Mission-1 (BGM-1) lander operated for the entire 14-days of its expected lifetime, operating all 10 NASA experiments and transmitting amazing images of the lunar surface, a Sun-Earth eclipse, and lunar sundown.  BGM-1’s lifetime on the Moon may have come to an end, but analysis of the 51 gigabytes of science data it sent back is just beginning.

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Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams and their Crew-9 crewmates Nick Hague and Aleksandr (“Alex”) Gorbunov splashed down near Florida this afternoon. Butch and Suni’s extended stay on the ISS captured a great deal of attention although at 286 days they are well short of the 371-day record set by Frank Rubio for the longest U.S. space mission.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 16-22, 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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Crew-10 arrived at the International Space Station just after midnight March 16.  Commander Anne McClain (NASA), pilot Nichole Ayers (NASA), and mission specialists Takuya Onishi (JAXA) and Kirill Peskov (Roscosmos) soon entered the ISS and began their multi-month mission on the ISS. They are replacing Crew-9, which will come home in a few days.

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The Senate passed a bill tonight to keep the government operating through the end of the fiscal year. Ordinarily that would be good news, but many Democrats strongly oppose the bill. They blame Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for allowing it to pass and giving President Trump and Elon Musk free reign to cut government programs that support working Americans.

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Space’s Crew Dragon Endurance lifted off from Kennedy Space Center this evening carrying Crew-10 to the International Space Station, two days later than planned. When they arrive at the ISS late tomorrow, they will be greeted by the seven astronauts currently living and working there. Among them are Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the NASA astronauts who have become famous because their 8-day test flight on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft last summer turned into a 9-month mission first because of problems with Starliner and then delays with a new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. …

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Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission-1 captured a dazzling image of the Sun emerging from behind Earth early this morning from its vantage point on the Moon. BGM-1 is nearing the end of its 14-day operational life, the first fully successful commercial lunar lander.

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ULA’s new Vulcan rocket continues to await DOD certification so it can launch national security satellites. A faulty part in a nozzle of one of Vulcan’s solid rocket boosters marred the rocket’s second flight last year and delayed two National Security Space Launch missions that were supposed to launch in the fall.  ULA now is ready to go as soon as DOD gives the word.  In the meantime, it is getting ready for a launch of its venerable Atlas rocket with a commercial payload for Amazon’s Project Kuiper.

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The international crew of Crew-10 almost made it into space tonight, but the launch was scrubbed less than an hour before liftoff because of a ground-side hydraulic issue. Another attempt was possible tomorrow, but the weather is forecast to be unfavorable so SpaceX and NASA will wait until Friday at 7:03 pm ET to try again.

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A bipartisan group of Senators introduced a NASA authorization bill today that is very similar to one introduced in the closing days of the last Congress. The bill supports American leadership in space, including NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon and go on to Mars, leveraging private sector investment, and other ongoing priorities.

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