The new chairman of the House space subcommittee thinks Congress will need to strike a balance between addressing national security and privacy concerns about commercial satellite remote sensing data yet not over-regulating the business. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) is skeptical legislation will pass anytime soon, but a hearing on the issues is a possibility.
NASA expects to firm up the schedule for the first Space Launch System (SLS) flight a few weeks after Thursday’s hot fire test. The agency is still holding November 2021 open, but a lot has happened since it was set two years ago including delays due to COVID-19, hurricanes, and technical issues.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei said today his planned 6-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS) could turn into a year-long flight if Russian plans to launch two tourists in the fall go forward. Just last week, NASA and its Russian counterpart Roscosmos formally assigned Vande Hei to the Soyuz MS-18 crew launching on April 9.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 14-20, 2021 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
NASA announced today it will conduct the second Space Launch System (SLS) hot fire test on March 18. If successful, it will be the final step before sending the SLS core stage to Kennedy Space Center in preparation for the first SLS launch. NASA officials continue to insist that launch could take place this year, but most bets are on 2022.
NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, today announced that NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei will be aboard Soyuz MS-18 when it launches to the International Space Station (ISS) next month. The deal is not between NASA and Roscosmos, however, but through an intermediary, the U.S. company Axiom Space.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 7-13 plus a bonus day and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
NASA shared images today of tire tracks on Mars made by the Perseverance rover, which took its first drive yesterday, two weeks after landing. Also yesterday, President Biden made good on a promise to call the Perseverance team and thank them personally. He once again enthused about the mission as lifting the spirits of a beleaguered world and showing that nothing is impossible if people work together.
At first it seemed SpaceX proved the adage that the third time is the charm. Today’s third attempt to launch a Starship prototype to 10 kilometers and land it safely back on Earth appeared to work, but several minutes after landing, it exploded, the same fate as its two predecessors. Still, it was a step forward in Elon Musk’s development of a system to take people to the Moon and Mars.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is inviting applications from people who want to join him on a trip around the Moon on SpaceX’s Starship. Another billionaire is choosing companions to fly with him to Earth orbit later this year on a different SpaceX system, but Maezawa is going bigger. He bought all the seats on a SpaceX Starship for a week-long trip around the Moon in 2023. Anyone who signs up by March 14 will get further instructions on the selection process.