After finally reaching a regular cadence of launches, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will abandon the Unity spaceship after just two or three more flights as it shifts resources into the new Delta vehicle that it expects to be more profitable. Delta will be able to carry 50 percent more passengers and launch twice a week, but getting it ready means cutbacks both to Unity flights and the company’s workforce.
The ministers of the European Space Agency’s member states today committed to a “paradigm shift” in the European space program and “asserting Europe’s rightful place in the world.” Meeting as part of a Space Summit in Seville, Spain in tandem with the European Union’s space program, the ESA Council declared it will lift Europe’s space ambitions for a “green and sustainable future, access to space, and space exploration.” Among the new initiatives is a commercial cargo return vehicle for the ISS that could evolve into a crewed capsule.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last week, October 30-November 5, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 5-11, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
The two top Republicans on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee who oversee space activities introduced a long-awaited bill today addressing commercial space activities. Among the many provisions of the comprehensive legislation, the bill expands the responsibilities of the Office of Space Commerce in the Department of Commerce and extends a moratorium on the FAA promulating new commercial human spaceflight regulations.
The House Appropriations Committee has posted the report to accompany the bill that includes FY2024 funding for NASA. The Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee approved the bill months ago and top-level funding levels were made public at the time, but details usually are not provided until a bill passes the full committee. That never happened. With the House getting ready to take up the bill soon, the report is now out. One program that fares much better in the House than in the Senate version is Mars Sample Return.
NASA heralded another signatory to the Artemis Accords yesterday when the Netherlands joined during a ceremony in Washington, DC. To the surprise of many, that made Netherlands the 31st country, not the 30th, to join the non-binding principles of responsible behavior on the Moon. With no public fanfare at all, Iceland had joined in October.
SpaceX’s Starship is another step closer today to getting an FAA license to attempt a second orbital flight test. The FAA announced the company has completed all the required corrective actions following its first failed launch in April. Environmental regulators still need to give their approval, however.
The three-man Shenzhou-16 space station crew is back on Earth after 5 months on Tiangong-3. Their replacements arrived a few days ago, continuing China’s practice of keeping Tiangong-3 permanently occupied by crews rotating on 5-6 month schedules just like the International Space Station. This is new for China, but the ISS is about to celebrate 23 years of permanent occupancy.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last week, October 23-29, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.