Nicky Fox, the head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, again urged the NASA science community to stick together in these tough budget times and not split into factions fighting each other. After years of steadily increasing budgets and projections maintaining that growth rate, SMD is suddenly facing a future with about $1 billion less each year. While it still will have $7.5 billion or more, tough choices will have to be made about projects still in the planning stages like Mars Sample Return.

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President Biden’s FY2025 request for the U.S. Space Force is $29.4 billion, $600 million less than what he asked for in FY2024. Congress is still working on the FY2024 request. The Space Force and the rest of DOD are operating under a Continuing Resolution that expires on March 22. If the requested levels for FY2024 and 2025 are approved, the Space Force will suffer a two percent loss, the first reduction since it was created in 2020. …

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The FAA issued a launch license today for SpaceX to conduct the third Orbital Flight Test (OFT-3) of their Starship rocket tomorrow, March 14. The date was announced last week pending regulatory approval and that is what came today. This is SpaceX’s third Starship test in less than a year and will take a different flight path than the first two — both of which failed — to allow additional in-flight tests.

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Four international astronauts splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico early this morning completing a six month mission to the International Space Station. Crew-7 consists of astronauts from NASA, ESA, JAXA and Roscosmos, the first time for a NASA mission where all four crew members hail from different countries.

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President Biden’s request for NASA in FY2025 is far short of the increases he has asked for in the past, reflecting the realities of the budget caps in last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson remained upbeat today, however, stressing that those caps are only for two years, FY2024 and FY2025. He is looking forward to FY2026 and beyond. For now, however, the FY2025 request is $25.384 billion, the same as FY2023 and two percent more than the FY2024 appropriation.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 10-16, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session for at least part of this week. …

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FY2024 funding for NASA, NOAA and the FAA cleared the Senate tonight hours before funding would have run out at midnight. President Biden is expected to sign the bill expeditiously. Funding for departments and agencies, including DOD, in six other appropriations bills are still pending with a March 22 expiration date. All of this occurs more than 5 months into FY2024 and just days before Biden submits his budget request for FY2025.

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SpaceX is targeting March 14 for the next Starship Orbital Flight Test pending FAA approval. It will be the third flight of the gigantic rocket in less than a year and will fly a different trajectory. The first two attempts did not attain orbit, but were to land near Hawaii if they did. This time Starship will head to the Indian Ocean. SpaceX says it will allow more types of tests along the route.

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The Senate passed the Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2024 yesterday to keep the FAA authorized for another two months instead of expiring tomorrow. The bill also extends the “learning period” under which the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is prohibited from promulgating new commercial human spaceflight regulations until May 11. The legislation passed the House last week and now goes to the President for signature.

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