NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian colleagues landed in Kazakhstan this morning after 371 days in space, a new record for a U.S. astronaut. The duration was a surprise. They were supposed to come home after six months, but the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft that took them to the International Space Station a year ago lost all its coolant and was deemed unsafe to bring them back. A replacement spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, was sent up for today’s return, causing a change in the crew rotation schedule and a one-year mission for the trio.

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NASA announced today that Charity Weeden is the new Associate Administrator for the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy. Weeden is well known in Washington space policy circles, most recently as the head of policy and government relations for Astroscale.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last two weeks, September 11-24, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

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Seven years after it left Earth, a capsule landed in Utah today delivering the biggest bonanza of pristine asteroid material in the history of the space program. The approximately 250 grams of regolith from the asteroid Bennu took more than two years to make the trip home where scientists are eagerly awaiting the moment when they get to see exactly what’s inside.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 24-30, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate will be in session beginning Tuesday as the clock ticks down to the end of FY2023.

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An Independent Review Board assessing the status of the NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return mission has concluded that although the mission has tremendous scientific value, it is poorly managed and designed with unrealistic budget and schedule expectations. The program has a “near zero” probability of meeting the existing launch readiness dates and would cost $8-9.6 billion, requiring more than $1 billion per year for at least three years beginning in FY2025. On the good news front, the IRB suggests alternatives that would still achieve the end result, but later in the 2030s and they may cost more.

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The FAA is proposing a new rule requiring commercial space companies to dispose of their rocket upper stages to limit the creation of more space debris. Five disposal methods are allowed: a controlled or uncontrolled deorbit within certain time limits, putting the stage into a less congested orbit or sending it into an Earth-escape orbit, or retrieving it. A 90-day public comment period will begin once the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of September 17-24, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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A new Russian-American crew has arrived on the International Space Station as part of a rather unusual crew rotation. The three people aboard Soyuz MS-24 were supposed to launch six months ago on Soyuz MS-23, but that spacecraft had to be launched empty because of a technical problem with Soyuz MS-22 already docked at ISS. They are finally aboard, but unlike most crews that arrive and leave together, this time the American will return as usual after six months, but the two Russians will stay for a year. …

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