The first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, Crew-1, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) at 11:01 pm ET. The hatch between Crew Dragon and ISS is scheduled to open in about two hours at 1:10 am ET after conducting a series of leak checks. The four arriving astronauts will be greeted by the three ISS crew members already aboard. [UPDATE: The hatch was opened at 1:02 am ET.]
SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on time at 7:27 pm ET Sunday carrying four astronauts for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS). If all goes as planned, they will arrive this evening, November 16, about 11:00 pm ET to begin a 6-month stay. A problem with propellant heaters on the spacecraft shortly after launch was resolved in a few hours and all is well currently.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 15-21, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
NASA and SpaceX have decided to wait until Sunday to launch Crew-1, the first operational mission of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon space transportation system. Bad weather delayed the departure of SpaceX’s drone ship needed to recover the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage. The launch now is scheduled for Sunday, November 15, at 7:27 pm ET.
A panel of experts established by NASA to assess its plans to return samples of Mars to Earth is recommending that NASA delay the launch of the next two spacecraft and build the budget around a higher cost estimate. The panel strongly supports the three-spacecraft mission, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, but concluded the current plan is too ambitious.
NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has concluded that the Gateway space station NASA plans to put in lunar orbit as part of the Artemis program likely will not be ready in time to support the Trump Administration’s plan to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024. NASA said earlier this year that Gateway is not needed for the landing, but expected to have an initial version in place by 2023 nonetheless.
Weather permitting, the first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will lift off from Kennedy Space Center on Saturday after clearing its Flight Readiness Review (FRR) yesterday. In conjunction with that process, NASA formally certified Crew Dragon as meeting NASA’s technical and safety human spaceflight requirements, the last milestone in the years-long effort to develop and test this “commercial crew” space transportation system.
The Senate Appropriations Committee said today it is evaluating the need to change existing law that prohibits the FAA from promulgating new regulations on the safety of commercial human spaceflight passengers until 2023. It also wants the FAA to assess how its launch and reentry licensing process could be used to address risks from reentering space debris.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a significant funding increase for NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC) for FY2021. The committee did not, however, agree to elevating OSC out of NOAA and into the office of the Secretary of Commerce who wants to create a Bureau of Space Commerce with expanded responsibilities. A separate bill to do just that will be marked up by a different Senate committee next week.
The Senate Appropriations Committee released its recommendations for all 12 FY2021 appropriations bills today. The Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill provides NASA with $23.5 billion, $1.75 billion less than requested. The House-passed bill keeps the agency at its current level of $22.6 billion, so the final compromise likely will be somewhere in that range. NASA’s request for Human Landing Systems (HLS) for the Artemis program was particularly hard hit on both sides of Capitol Hill.