Weekly Roundup for SpacePolicyOnline.com: April 1-7, 2024

Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com over the last week, April 1-7, 2024, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

What’s Happening in Space Policy April 7-13, 2024

April 7, 2024.  Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 7-13, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

Soyuz MS-24 Returns Three to Earth

April 6, 2024. Russia’s Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft returned two professional astronauts — a Russian and an American — and a spaceflight participant from Belarus to Earth today. The trio landed in Kazakhstan just after noon local time (early morning EDT). NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara completed a 6-month mission aboard the International Space Station while the other two were in space for just two weeks.

Ed Dwight to Finally Get His Flight to Space

April 4, 2024. Ed Dwight will finally get to reach space on Blue Origin’s next flight of New Shepard. Like Wally Funk and the other “Mercury 13” women who thought they were in line to become NASA astronauts in the early 1960s, Dwight was the only African American in the training process back then. Like them, he was not selected as white males exclusively became astronauts until 1978. He will fly on NS-25, the first Blue Origin passenger flight in almost two years. The date was not announced.

NASA Picks Three Companies for Lunar Terrain Vehicle Feasbility Studies

April 3, 2024. NASA has chosen three companies to participate in the first phase of developing, building and operating Lunar Terrain Vehicles as part of the Artemis campaign. Eventually one of the three — Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, or Venturi Astrolab — will be chosen to build an LTV that can be used both autonomously and with astronauts.

DOD Issues First Commercial Space Integration Strategy

April 2, 2024.  DOD issued its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy today, emphasizing the growing role it sees for commercial space companies in supporting national security space activities. DOD worked closely with the commercial sector in developing the strategy and ensured it is unclassified in order to be transparent about what it is trying to achieve and to hold itself accountable in coming years. The U.S. Space Force is expected to release its own commercial strategy soon.

What Time Is It On the Moon? OSTP Wants to Know

April 2, 2024. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wants to establish standards for determining what time it is elsewhere in the solar system. A White House policy issued today starts with the Moon, directing NASA and other government agencies to develop a lunar timing standard it calls Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) by the end of 2026 to support operations on and around the Moon. They also are to work with the international community to make it the international cislunar standard.

Weekly Roundup for SpacePolicyOnline.com: March 25-31, 2024

April 1, 2024. Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com over the last week, March 25-31, 2024, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.