President Trump released a “skinny” version of his FY2026 budget request today with top-line numbers for NASA and other parts of the government funded by annual appropriations.  The detailed budget request will be released later this month.  Deep cuts to NASA were expected and are born out in the proposal, which reduces NASA’s budget by 24 percent. Human spaceflight gets a boost, including $1 billion in investments for human Mars exploration, but everything else is down. Reaction from Congress and the aerospace community is a combination of shock and a reminder that this is just one step in a lengthy process, not a final result.

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China’s Shenzhou-19 space station crew landed in Inner Mongolia early this morning Eastern Daylight Time, about a day later than planned because of bad weather at the landing site.  Their replacements on Shenzhou-20 arrived at Tiangong-3 last week, continuing permanent occupancy of China’s space station. Two of the Shenzhou-19 taikonauts set a new world record of 9 hours and 6 minutes for a single spacewalk.

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President Trump’s nomination of Jared Isaacman to be the next NASA Administrator was approved by committee this morning by a vote of 19-9.  All Republicans and four Democrats voted in favor of the nomination. Nine Democrats voted no.  The next step will be a vote by the full Senate, but the timing is unclear.

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The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) approved the reconciliation package it crafted with the Senate Armed Services Committee to spend an additional $150 billion on defense through FY2034. It is the first step in a process to enact President Trump’s agenda to cut government spending, but at the same time make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, provide additional tax cuts, and add spending for defense, energy and border security. The bill includes about $25 billion for the Golden Dome missile shield that envisions space-based interceptors.

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Weather cooperated tonight and the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket sent the first 27 operational Project Kuiper satellites into orbit for Amazon.  Similar to SpaceX’s Starlink system, Project Kuiper will grow into a constellation of more than 3,000 satellites to provide Internet broadband services via satellite around the globe.

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After just coming back from seven months on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Don Pettit insists there is no reason to “dump” it into the ocean in 2030.  It has a lot of life left and with proper maintenance could last as long as the Air Force’s legendary B-52 airplanes.  He also hopes for one or two more trips to space. At 70, he’s seven years younger than the current record-holder for orbital flight — John Glenn, who made his second spaceflight at the age of 77.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 27-May 3, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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Troy Meink, President Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of the Air Force, reportedly told the Senate Armed Services Committee that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sat in on his job interview with Trump. The revelation raises conflict of interest concerns since SpaceX has billions of dollars in contracts with the Department of the Air Force, which oversees the U.S. Space Force. It also resurfaces the question of whether Musk sat in on Trump’s interview with NASA Administrator-nominee Jared Isaacman. SpaceX is NASA’s second largest contractor. Isaacman has repeatedly declined to answer that question, but did tell the Senate Commerce Committee in response to post-hearing questions that he has terminated his contracts with SpaceX for two additional commercial spaceflights.

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On the 35th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, President Trump issued a statement tonight promising America will lead the way in space discovery and exploration. His statement comes amid deep concern in the space community about the future of space science at NASA following a proposal from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget to cut space science by about 50 percent in FY2026.

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The U.S.-Russian Joint Commission that advises NASA and Roscosmos on operations of the International Space Station is stressing the need for a planned, controlled deorbit of the ISS at the end of its lifetime. Both primary and backup deorbit capabilities must be in place before the two-and-a-half year orbit-lowering process begins. That would put the ISS into the Pacific Ocean at the end of 2030. They also want to ensure there is no gap between ISS and whatever replaces it to ensure research critical to supporting human missions to the Moon and Mars continues uninterrupted.

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