Standing in front of one of his enormous Starship/Super Heavy rockets at SpaceX’s Starbase test facility in southeastern Texas, Elon Musk said tonight he is “highly confident” Starship will reach orbit this year. He offered few specifics in what was billed as an update, but remained ebullient about the prospects for his completely reusable rocket system to transform space transportation and enable humanity to become a multiplanetary species.

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The main focus of a Senate hearing today on NASA was the insistence by the committee’s bipartisan leadership for Congress to pass a new NASA authorization act to enable effective congressional oversight of the agency’s activities. The Senate passed a new bill last summer, but there has been no action in the House so the rhetoric seemed aimed at House and Senate leadership rather than the expert witnesses at the table.

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SpaceX revealed today that almost all of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched last week were affected by a geomagnetic storm and will reenter or have already. Such “space weather” storms are created by the interaction of solar particles with the atmosphere.

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Eric Lander, the first presidential science advisor to hold Cabinet rank, resigned tonight after a White House investigation found credible evidence supporting accusations by his staff that he treated them demeaningly. President Biden vowed when he took office that he would fire anyone who treated others disrespectfully. The initial White House response was muted, but the tide turned after Politico reported on the situation today.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 6-12, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session for at least part of this week.

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A month after formally announcing plans to extend operations of the International Space Station to 2030, NASA is making clear that is the end of the road. A new update to its ISS transition plan spells out how that end will play out, with the orbit gradually lowered until the football-field size facility reenters and any surviving pieces fall into the Pacific Ocean in January 2031. After that, NASA will buy whatever human spaceflight services it needs in low Earth orbit from companies expected to be operating their own space stations by then.

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China’s new quinquennial white paper laying out space ambitions for the next five years includes an expanding role in space environment governance such as mitigating space debris. Not mentioned, however, is China’s recent use of one of its spacecraft, Shijian-21, to tow another out of geostationary orbit. That was made public by a U.S. company that tracks objects in space. China’s silence is odd since it aligns so well with its stated objectives and once again underscores the country’s lack of transparency.

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NASA and SpaceX officials told reporters today they are not overly concerned about the delayed opening of parachutes during the splashdowns of the two recent flights of the Dragon spacecraft. Each spacecraft has four parachutes and only three are needed for a safe landing, but why the fourth lagged behind is not understood yet. Nonetheless, they are confident enough to proceed with plans to launch the next NASA crew on April 15.

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NASA is getting ever closer to the long-delayed and much-anticipated launch of Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. SLS and Orion are stacked together at Kennedy Space Center waiting to be rolled out to the launch pad for a dress rehearsal, but the agency said today it will wait another month as it takes preparations step-by-step.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 30-February 5, 2022 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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