India successfully completed a high altitude crew capsule abort test for its nascent Gaganyaan human spaceflight program today. The first attempt scrubbed just before liftoff, but they quickly found and fixed the problem, restarted the countdown, and lifted off two hours later than planned. After the capsule separated from the rocket, it splashed down in the ocean and was recovered by the Indian Navy.
NASA may have received discouraging news from a recent independent review of the Mars Sample Return mission, but key NASA officials and members of the space science community remain upbeat about finding a path forward. NASA is just beginning a detailed examination of the report to determine next steps, but at a meeting today of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, the message was that returning samples from Mars is the highest priority planetary science mission and they will find a way to do it.
SpaceX told a Senate committee today that government regulations are slowing the development of Starship and the commercial human spaceflight industry is at a “breaking point” in terms of maintaining U.S. leadership in space. The message from SpaceX and other industry leaders was that ensuring safety is important, but so is innovation and the regulatory landscape has to change for the U.S. to stay ahead of China.
As India readies for a test flight of the crew escape system for a new human-rated launch vehicle this weekend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out exploration goals including an Indian space station by 2035 and a man on the Moon by 2040. India is celebrating the success of the Chandrayaan-3 robotic lunar lander in August and also looking forward to future robotic missions not only to the Moon, but Venus and Mars as well.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last week, October 9-15, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio is finding his readjustment to Earth’s gravity after 371 days in space pretty straightforward. Two weeks after landing, he considers himself 100 percent back to normal functionally and 80-90 percent overall. Every astronaut reacts differently to spaceflight, though, so he declined to generalize about what his experience may mean for people staying in space for even longer periods of time, like on trips to Mars.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 15-21, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House schedule is uncertain.
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft started a billion mile journey to an asteroid by that name between Mars and Jupiter this morning. Of all the thousands and thousands of asteroids, Psyche is one of only nine discovered so far that is composed primarily of metal instead of rock. Scientists think it may have been the core of a tiny planet and thus may hold clues to the cores of Earth and other planets. Psyche also is being used as a technology testbed for a Deep Space Optical Communications system.
NASA’s Office of Inspector General is skeptical that NASA will achieve significant cost savings by shifting procurement of future Space Launch System rockets to a commercial services contract. In a report released today, the OIG called NASA’s goal of saving 50 percent “highly unrealistic” and estimated each of the first 10 SLSs under the new contract will cost at least $2.5 billion to produce. Still, it endorsed NASA’s idea of changing how it procures SLS, the space transportation system that will send astronauts back to the Moon.
NASA officials refer to this as Asteroid Autumn and they’re not kidding. Today they revealed the first samples that were just returned from the asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft while at the same time getting ready to launch the Psyche mission to a very different type of asteroid tomorrow. Those are just two of several asteroid missions in development, operations or analysis at the agency right now as scientists continue their quest to discover how the solar system — and life — formed.