Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of May 29-June 5, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week (except for pro forma sessions).
NASA announced today that the Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis I misson will roll back to the launch pad on June 6 in preparation for resuming the Wet Dress Rehearsal test. After three attempts to complete the test in April, the rocket was taken back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for several fixes while a contractor upgraded a system that supplies gas to purge propellant lines. Loading the rocket with propellant, a key step in the test, is scheduled for June 19. NASA will not set a date for launching Artemis I until the tests are done.
Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner commercial crew flight test landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico this evening, bringing Orbital Flight Test-2 to a close. Overall, the mission appears to have been a success despite a few glitches getting to orbit. Boeing and NASA will review all the data and decide how quickly the next step, a test flight with a crew, can take place and ultimately lead to the agency having two independent means of getting astronauts to and from low Earth orbit.
President Biden is using space, especially the Artemis program, as part of his outreach to South Korea and Japan as he travels in Asia to buttress trade relationships. Both are signatories to the Artemis Accords. Japan, already a partner in the International Space Station, is planning to build part of the lunar Gateway space station and today Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister agreed that a Japanese astronaut will visit Gateway and perhaps the lunar surface.
Boeing and NASA confirmed today that the uncrewed Starliner spacecraft will complete the Orbital Flight Test-2 mission on Wednesday. Launched last week, Starliner encountered a few glitches on the way to docking with the International Space Station, but everything appears to have gone well since. Undocking, deorbit burn, and landing in New Mexico are the next big steps to demonstrate Starliner is ready to carry people. The Crew Flight Test could launch by the end of this year. NASA is eager to have this second commercial crew system available to ferry crews to and from the ISS.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of May 22-29, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House meets only in pro forma sessions, but committees will meet virtually for part of the week.
Boeing and NASA are ready for the third attempt to launch the Starliner commercial crew spacecraft to the International Space Station on an uncrewed test flight. NASA is eager to get Starliner certified so it can have two redundant, dissimilar systems for taking crews to and from the ISS, but Starliner’s debut has been delayed by a series of setbacks. Hopes are high tomorrow’s Orbital Flight Test-2 launch will turn the tide.
House appropriators who oversee NASA’s budget offered effusive praise yesterday for NASA’s space science, technology and exploration programs and aeronautics research, but pressed hard on the need to control cost overruns and schedule delays. As was true at the companion Senate hearing two weeks ago, Bechtel’s performance building Mobile Launcher 2 for the Artemis program was a particular target of concern.
Colorado Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet met with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall today to push back on findings from two reports that the decision to site U.S. Space Command headquarters in Alabama was justified. They insist the Trump Administration’s “untested” decision process ignored national security and cost concerns.
Four years after President Trump assigned civil space situational awareness responsibilities to the Department of Commerce, Congress has yet to formally authorize the Department to take on that task. Based on a hearing last week, House Democrats and Republicans still have many questions. A Senate bill is slowly inching forward as part of the innovation and competition act, but what can get done in the limited legislative time remaining in this election year is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, Earth orbit gets more and more congested every day. SpaceX alone launched 106 more Starlink satellites this weekend.