Four key Democratic and Republican Senators have introduced legislation to start ridding earth orbit of space debris. The Orbital Sustainability (ORBITS) Act calls on NASA to establish a program to demonstrate technologies for Active Debris Removal, authorizing $150 million over 5 years. The bill also requires various agencies to publish a list of the debris that poses the greatest threat, update orbital debris standards, and encourage development of practices for coordinating space traffic to avoid collisions that create even more debris.

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The FAA said it will investigate the launch failure today of a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. It was just the second launch failure in the company’s history and the first since 2015. The reusable rockets and capsules can carry either cargo or passengers. Although today’s flight carried only experiments, not people, the chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees commercial spaceflight said it’s a reminder of the risks involved and he will be keeping an eye on it as well.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 11-17, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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So much has been happening recently that it’s tough to keep up with all the news so we are resurrecting our “tidbits” feature to provide at least a glimpse, if not as much context as usual, into three important stories over the past few days: DOD and the Department of Commerce signed an agreement on Space Traffic Management, the National Academies reported on whether Ligado will interfere with DOD’s GPS system, and DOD issued a new space policy.

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Vice President Kamala Harris chaired a second meeting of the White House National Space Council yesterday. As with the first meeting, STEM education was one of the three main topics. The other two were NASA’s human spaceflight program and creating regulations for novel commercial space activities. No major decisions were announced, but a White House framework for STEM education and space workforce development was released and several tasks were assigned to Council members.

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At her second meeting of the White House National Space Council, Vice President Kamala Harris asked all Council members to submit proposals on how to regulate “novel” commercial space activities — those not already regulated. Last month Harris highlighted the need to create a clear, consistent, and flexible regulatory environment to attract investors and ensure U.S. leadership. The question of which agency should be in charge of overseeing these new types of space businesses has been debated for years without resolution. …

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The FAA has appointed Kelvin Coleman as the new Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation, succeeding Wayne Monteith. Coleman has a long history at the office, most recently serving as Acting Associate Administrator since Monteith’s departure in March.

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NASA is targeting September 23 or September 27 for the next attempt to launch Artemis I, but those dates are quite tentative. Not only does NASA need to get a waiver from the U.S. Space Force to avoid replacing a critical battery for the Flight Termination System, but also must successfully test new seals being installed to fix the liquid hydrogen leak that scrubbed Saturday’s launch.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 4-10, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House will meet only in pro forma sessions, but committees will meet virtually.

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NASA’s second try to launch the Artemis I test flight around the Moon ended the same way as the first — a scrub. On Monday, several problems arose including a liquid hydrogen leak. That one was fixed, but today another hydrogen leak in a different place did not respond to the valiant efforts of NASA’s engineers. NASA officials are still investigating what went wrong, but expect it will take several weeks to fix so it will be some time before they try again.

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