The heads of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed an agreement today formally outlining ESA’s role in the Gateway, a small space station that will orbit the Moon as part of the Artemis program. International and commercial partnerships are foundational to Artemis according to NASA and the White House. Canada and Japan also have signed agreements signaling their intent to participate as well.
NASA announced today a new launch date for the first operational mission of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS) — November 14. The launch was postponed after an engine anomaly during the attempted launch of a non-NASA satellite in early October. NASA and SpaceX will discuss the results of the investigation into that anomaly during a media teleconference on October 28.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 25-31, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session for part of the week. The House will meet in pro forma sessions only.
In a hastily called press conference this afternoon, NASA announced that the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected so much material when it touched down on Bennu that it overfilled the collection device. Some of the larger pieces of material are preventing a flap from closing to secure the material inside. Time now is of the essence to get the samples safely stowed in the canister that will return them to Earth.
President Trump signed the PROSWIFT space weather bill into law on October 21, but an accompanying signing statement expressed a number of caveats. Not only does he consider certain sections to be a limitation on his discretion to conduct foreign affairs, but he objects to what he calls the bill’s failure to address the resilience of national security assets or critical infrastructure.
The chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee today introduced legislation to formally put the Department of Commerce in charge of providing Space Situational Awareness (SSA) data to civil, commercial and international satellite operators. A Trump Administration Space Policy Directive did that in 2018, but Congress has yet to codify it in law or provide the money to make it happen.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return spacecraft successfully executed a Touch-and-Go (TAG) maneuver today, touching the surface of asteroid Bennu just long enough — hopefully — to ingest at least 60 grams of soil. It will take a week or so to know for sure how much was obtained for return to Earth, but mission controllers were clearly ecstatic that the procedure taking place more than 200 million miles away went as planned.
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will make its first attempt to grab a sample of asteroid Bennu tomorrow. The spacecraft has been orbiting Bennu for almost two years assessing the asteroid and the best place to touch down. If all goes well, this will be the only attempt, but if not, it can try twice more.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 18-24, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House will meet in pro forma sessions only, although members are advised they could be called back with 24 hours notice.
The Department of Transportation released updated and streamlined regulations today for the commercial space launch and reentry industry in response to the Trump Administration’s Space Policy Directive-2. Industry reaction to a preliminary version of the regulations last year was quite negative, but government officials said today the final rule responds to those concerns. Industry is getting its first look right now, but so far the reaction is cautious optimism.