The State Department is starting discussions with U.S. stakeholders to organize an International Lunar Year. The ILY will build on the International Geophysical Year that heralded the beginning of the Space Age, the International Space Year of the early 1990s, and other international “years” that coordinate global scientific efforts and educate the public.
Intuitive Machines announced today that its first lunar landing mission is set for launch between November 15-20, 2023. IM-1 will land at the Moon’s South Pole as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last week, August 7-13, 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 August 13-19, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until September except for pro forma sessions.
Russia successfully launched the Luna-25 probe today almost 50 years after its last spacecraft landed on the Moon. Amidst backlash from its invasion of Ukraine that included the cancellation of significant space cooperation with other countries, Russia clearly wants to demonstrate it still is a player in space exploration. Today’s launch is one step, but landing on the Moon is fraught with risks as others recently experienced.
NASA said today the next two missions in NASA’s program to return astronauts to the Moon, Artemis II and Artemis III, remain on track for launch in late 2024 and late 2025, but a lot of work remains. That is especially true for Artemis III, the mission currently slated to put astronauts back on the lunar surface. The head of the Artemis program broached the possibility that a “different mission” could be flown if all the hardware is not ready because the point is to keep flying and keep learning.
Boeing’s Mark Nappi said today that the Starliner Crew Flight Test will be ready to go in March 2024, but fitting it into the busy space station and United Launch Alliance schedules will be complicated. Boeing had planned to launch CFT in July, but additional technical problems emerged in May leading to an indefinite delay.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last two weeks, July 24-August 6, 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 August 6-12, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until September except for pro forma sessions.
India’s Chandrayaan-3 reached lunar orbit today enroute to a landing in less than three weeks. It is the country’s second attempt to land on the Moon. The success rate for small lunar landers is quite poor so far, but hope is high the tide will turn. As many as five more lunar landers are planned for launch this year from Russia, Japan and the United States as interest in the Moon skyrockets.