A four-person crew lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at 5:49 am ET this morning on a reused SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a reused SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. Docking is scheduled for 5:10 am ET tomorrow morning where this crew will join seven colleagues already aboard the International Space Station (ISS), four of whom will return home next week.
Today is Earth Day and President Biden announced his intent to nominate Rick Spinrad to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a key agency in studying climate change. An oceanographer, Spinrad is a former NOAA Chief Scientist now at Oregon State University.
NASA’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are busy at work on the surface of Mars. Ingenuity made a second flight today, higher and longer than the first, while an experiment on the rover — known as Percy for short — produced oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.
Former Senator Bill Nelson received only accolades at his confirmation hearing today to be NASA’s next administrator. The career politician who served three terms in the Senate was welcomed as an old friend by Republicans and Democrats alike. No dissent was heard. In short, it was a lovefest.
NASA’s Inspector General remains skeptical that NASA can launch the first three Artemis missions on their promised schedules, calling it “highly unlikely.” In a report released today, he also estimates that NASA has spent $37.2 billion on Artemis so far, a total that will reach $86 billion by the end of FY2025.
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made its first flight on Mars this morning, the first powered flight on another planet. According to data received at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory about 6:30 am ET, the tiny rotorcraft lifted off, ascended to about 10 feet, hovered, and landed as planned. A second flight could take place as soon as Thursday. President Biden was among those praising today’s achievement.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 18-24, 2021 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
SpaceX has won a three-way contest to build a system to get astronauts from lunar orbit down to and back from the lunar surface. NASA earlier insisted it wanted to award contracts to two bidders to ensure at least one would be ready in time to meet a 2024 goal of putting astronauts back on the Moon, but lack of funding drove the agency to pick just one. For now, that is. The agency plans to open another competition soon for future lunar landing services that could provide opportunities for other companies.
President Biden announced his intent to nominate former astronaut Col. Pamela Melroy (Ret.) to be Deputy Administrator of NASA today. The nomination has been widely expected for weeks. It was somewhat overshadowed today by the agency’s announcement that it selected SpaceX to build the Human Landing System to take astronauts to the lunar surface.
A Senate committee will take up President Biden’s nomination of former Senator Bill Nelson to be NASA Administrator next week. It is another step along the path to confirmation, which Nelson is expected to win, but his opposition to another politician taking the job in 2018 could prompt some pushback during the hearing.