An independent review of why NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission was not ready for its scheduled launch this fall uncovered a host of problems not just with that mission, but more broadly with management of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The review found that JPL is stretched to the limit, with inadequate flight project staffing and “erosion of Line organization technical acumen.” Instead of terminating Psyche, NASA will fix the problems and launch next year, but an unrelated JPL mission to Venus, VERITAS, will be delayed three years so its funding can be diverted to Psyche and the JPL workload reduced.

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China’s Long March-5B rocket stage made an uncontrolled reentry this morning. No reports of debris falling on populated areas have surfaced so far. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson issued another statement criticizing China for taking unneccessary risks and not sharing information needed to accurately predict where it would come down.

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The U.S. pledge not to conduct debris-producing direct-ascent antisatellite tests is gaining more ground. Switzerland is the eighth country to join the U.S. commitment and a United Nations committee approved a draft resolution supporting it as a norm of responsible behavior in space.

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China’s launch of its Mengtian space station module means that another Long March-5B rocket stage is about to make an uncontrolled reentry somewhere on Earth. Previous international criticism of China’s decision not to equip the stage with a system to target its reentry into an unoccupied spot in the Pacific Ocean does not seem to have made any difference. When and where it will land is difficult to predict, but calculations by the Aerospace Corporation and the European Union’s space tracking organization estimate reentry tomorrow, November 4, with many populated areas including in the United States under the possible debris path. …

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NASA announced today that the Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft has been postponed again. Now expected in April 2023, a slip from February, it will take two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for a two-week visit to certify the spacecraft meets NASA requirements. Meanwhile, routine crew rotation flights will continue using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

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Gen. B. Chance Saltzman took command of U.S. Space Force today as Gen. Jay Raymond retires after 38 years of service. At a ceremony attended by military and industry leaders, Raymond was heralded for his leadership as “the father of the Space Force” in standing up the new service, created almost exactly three years ago. Saltzman, one of Raymond’s deputies, inherits the mantle and vowed to build on Raymond’s success.

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China launched its third and final space station module today, completing construction of Tiangong-3. It comes as China gets ready for its first crew rotation later this year, the beginning of China’s permanent human occupancy in Earth orbit. Coincidentally, the launch comes exactly 22 years after the first Russian-American crew launched to the International Space Station, which initiated permanent human occupancy in space for the ISS partners. China’s achievement may be two decades later, but is still a milestone for its growing space program.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of October 30-November 6, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess except for pro forma sessions.

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Australia has become the seventh country to join the United States in agreeing not to conduct destructive direct-ascent antisatellite tests. The U.S. initiative came in the wake of Russia’s ASAT test in November 2021 that littered low Earth orbit with debris. Russia made no apologies and just this week threatened that commercial satellites used to support Ukraine could be legitimate targets for attack. The White House countered that any attack “on U.S. infrastructure” would be met with a response.

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NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel is reopening a recommendation urging NASA to develop a controlled reentry plan for the International Space Station. The panel said today that technical and operational issues arose after a conceptual plan was adopted in 2020 and they now are reiterating concerns about the lack of an executable deorbit plan that could be needed at any time. ASAP also cautioned that operational flights of Boeing’s Starliner commercial crew system could be further delayed. On the good news front, they are pleased with the progress NASA is making on the architecture and integrated planning for Artemis.

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