The second day of a two-day NASA advisory committee meeting was much like the first.  After detailed briefings by NASA officials on its human spaceflight program, committee members had to ask themselves how best to advise NASA on the path forward. The consensus today was that the 2024 deadline for putting Americans back on the lunar surface is unrealistic. Instead of saying so directly, however, they chose to offer guidance on what must be done for NASA to have the best chance of success and ensure safety is paramount.

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A much anticipated meeting of a NASA committee that advises the agency on its human spaceflight program today left many questions about how the agency is moving forward to meet the Trump Administration’s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon in 2024.  A credible architecture for the Artemis program still seems elusive with only four-and-a-half years to go.

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NASA signed a deal today to pay its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, for one more seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to take a NASA astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) later this year.  NASA has been paying Russia to ferry crews back and forth for years, but with new U.S. systems getting ready to fly, the era of paying for those seats is coming to an end.  In the future, Americans will still fly on Soyuz, and Russians on the U.S. systems, but the plan is there will be no exchange of funds.

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A new report from the National Academies calls on NASA to create a permanent, independent advisory body representing all stakeholders to advise the agency on planetary protection policies.  The report reemphasizes how much has changed since international policies were last updated, with more and more countries, and companies, interested in robotic planetary exploration and human exploration of Mars.  The international Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) is already looking at planetary protection in the context of human Mars missions and will hold a virtual workshop next week.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of May 10-16, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate is in session this week. The House will meet in pro forma session on Tuesday; its schedule thereafter has not been announced.

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China’s test of a prototype crew spacecraft for future missions to an Earth-orbiting space station and perhaps the Moon ended successfully this morning (EDT) with a landing in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. [Updated with video of the capsule being moved from its landing spot to the Jiuquan space center.]

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NASA’s plans for the Artemis program to put astronauts on the Moon by 2024 continue to evolve. Despite recent statements from high ranking NASA officials that the small space station, Gateway, planned for lunar orbit was not needed before the 2024 landing, it now intends to launch it in 2023.  Key Democrats in Congress recently complained about the lack of a “transparent architecture” for the Artemis program as plans keep changing.

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DOD witnesses told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) today that the FCC’s approval of Ligado’s use of spectrum close to that used by the GPS system was flawed and want it reversed. Ligado wants to build a terrestrial 5G system using frequencies in the L-band assigned to satellite services including GPS.  DOD insists it will interfere with GPS, but the FCC argues its order requires Ligado to mitigate any such impacts and can move forward.

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The White House National Space Council is looking at revising the existing U.S. National Space Policy, issued in 2010 during the Obama Administration. Space Council director Scott Pace said today he expects a lot of continuity with the existing policy, but enough has changed to warrant an update. Meanwhile, the head of Russia’s space agency blasted the White House’s plans to create a legal blueprint for lunar exploration and utilization reportedly called the Artemis Accords.

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The leaders of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force revealed today that the next launch of the secretive X-37B spaceplane, set for May 16, will carry an experiment to convert solar energy into microwaves and beam them to Earth.

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