Thailand and Liechtenstein just joined the Artemis Accords, bringing the number of signatories to 52. Mike Gold, who was instrumental in creating the Accords, considers that a significant milestone because it is half the membership of the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The Accords now constitute a “true global consensus” on principles for responsible behavior on the Moon.
A government shutdown has been avoided as Congress finally passed a new Continuing Resolution at the last minute keeping the government open through mid-March. The House approved the same bill it defeated yesterday after removing a debt limit provision and the Senate followed suit about 40 minutes after the midnight deadline. President Biden signed the bill into law a few hours later.
The shutdown saga continued today as Republican House leadership brought a pared down Continuing Resolution to the floor for a vote knowing it probably would fail, and it did, with both Republican and Democratic opposition. Just over 24 hours before the current CR expires, the path forward is unclear.
Donald Trump will not be sworn in as President until January 20, but his influence is already being felt as Congress tries to keep the government operating after Friday midnight. House Speaker Johnson’s weeks-long effort to craft a new Continuing Resolution that could garner enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass, released last night, is in jeopardy with Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and government efficiency commission co-chairs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy vigorously fighting against it. With the clock ticking to avoid a government shutdown, the road ahead is murky.
Two days later than planned, a new Continuing Resolution was introduced in the House this evening to keep the government operating. Congress has not passed any of the FY2025 appropriations bills and the existing CR expires Friday at midnight. If another CR is not passed before that, government activities funded by the annual appropriations bills will be suspended.
The two NASA astronauts who are spending much longer aboard the International Space Station than planned are having their mission extended yet again. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived on Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test in June and now are part of Crew-9. They were supposed to come home in February after their replacements arrive on Crew-10, but Crew-10’s launch was just postponed because SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon spacecraft is not ready yet.
NASA released its new Low Earth Orbit Microgravity Strategy today with goals and objectives for the post-International Space Station era. NASA has long held that the United States must have a continuous presence in LEO, but one area of debate centered on whether that means a “continuous heartbeat” with human beings always present or a “continuous capability” where crews might be aboard a space station or not. In the end, continuous heartbeat won.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the remainder of this year, December 15-31, 2024, and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week and plan to adjourn thereafter.
NASA has a new 20-year plan for robotic exploration of Mars that calls for major paradigm shifts in how the agency approaches exploration of the Red Planet. The future should focus on smaller missions, more commercial and international engagement, and defining science goals for an era of human presence on Mars. The plan does not address the Mars Sample Return program, which is organizationally separate from the rest of the agency’s robotic science Mars efforts.
The FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act cleared the House today. Congress has passed an NDAA every year since the first in 1961 regardless of rancorous divisions and appears on track to keep that record intact this year. The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week. [UPDATE: The Senate passed the bill on December 18.]