What’s Happening in Space Policy March 30-April 5, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 30-April 5, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

It’s another busy week on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.  We’ll start with the next private astronaut mission scheduled for launch tomorrow (Monday) from Kennedy Space Center.

“Fram2” will be the first time humans circle the Earth’s poles from space and is named after a Norwegian ship, Fram, used for Arctic and Antarctic exploration from 1893-1912. Most of the information about the flight is being posted on X on the accounts of the “Framonauts” and @SpaceX.  Chinese-born cryptocurrency billionaire Chun Wang (@satofishi), now a citizen of Malta, is bankrolling the flight and has the title Mission Commander, but the Vehicle Commander is Jannicke Mikkelsen (@astro_jannicke), a Norwegian cinematographer, and the Vehicle Pilot is Rabea Rogge (@rprogge), a German engineer and Arctic roboticist. Australian explorer Eric Philips (@Icetrek) is mission specialist and medical officer.

Like Jared Isaacman’s flights, Fram2 will not visit the International Space Station so the mission duration is limited by the supplies on board. That means not only does the weather have to be favorable on launch day, but SpaceX needs to know before launch that the weather will be OK for landing several days later.  There are four launch opportunities starting at 9:46 pm ET tomorrow night going over into Tuesday morning and similar opportunities Tuesday night into Wednesday. SpaceX will webcast the launch beginning about an hour in advance.

They’re scheduled to be in space for 3.5-5.5 days doing a variety of experiments. Mikkelsen will use her cinematography skills to capture the first imagery of auroras while flying directly over the poles. Astronauts on the ISS have taken some amazing auroral images from their vantage point at 51.6 degrees inclination, but Fram2 will be directly over the poles (90 degrees). During an audio-only briefing on X’s Spaces platform on Friday, she said she’s been collaborating with NASA astronaut Don Pettit on the ISS to test out various camera settings. Pettit is a renowned space photographer. Mikkelsen has arranged with ground-based observatories and “2.2 million auroral citizen scientists” to take their own photos when Fram2 is flying overhead so they can have simultaneous imagery from above and below.

Another unique aspect of this flight is that it will be the first Crew Dragon to splash down off of California instead of Florida. SpaceX is moving all of its Dragon splashdowns, crew and cargo, to California, so they can better control where Dragon’s trunk lands. The unpressurized trunk separates from the capsule during reentry to expose the heat shield.  The way they’ve been doing it since 2019 when they introduced a new version of the capsule (Dragon 2), the separation takes place while the capsule is still in orbit. The trunk remains in orbit until it makes an uncontrolled landing somewhere, sometime, on the planet. Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589 on X and Bluesky) of Jonathan’s Space Report has a very useful chart of the fate of the trunks showing that in five cases debris was recovered on land.

Crew-9, which just returned from the ISS, was the last to splash down near Florida. The trunk from that capsule reentered over Morocco and pieces were found in Erg Chech, Algeria, according to Jonathan. It’s good that it won’t happen again.

The Dragon Crew-9 trunk reentered on Mar 24, entering the atmosphere over Morocco heading SE. Pieces of the trunk have now been found on the ground in the Erg Chech region, more or less right along the predicted ground track pic.twitter.com/uhlO5KJVJW

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) March 30, 2025

The original version of Dragon used for cargo flights to the ISS splashed down off California. SpaceX moved them to Florida to be closer to their refurbishment and launch facilities. They’re losing that advantage, but gaining another — the weather in California is often better than Florida.

Speaking of Crew-9, the three NASA crew members — Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — will hold their post-mission news conference tomorrow at 2:30 pm ET.  We’ve also heard they’ll be on Fox News tomorrow morning.  Butch and Suni have been mischaracterized as “stranded astronauts” for many months. They were never stranded.  They could have come home at any time and the spacecraft that did bring them home, Crew Dragon Freedom, had been docked at the ISS since last September.  No “rescue” mission was needed. They stayed as long as they did because they were made part of Crew-9 and they were waiting until their replacements on Crew-10 arrived.

Back here in D.C., the House and Senate are in the middle of a three-week push to get as far as possible in passing a reconciliation bill that implements President Trump’s agenda.  They returned from recess last week, are in session this week and next, and then take a two-week spring break that includes the Easter holidays. They’ve been pretty far apart on what should be included in the reconciliation bill — a special type of legislation that cannot be filibustered in the Senate — but reportedly are getting closer. Most of that debate is beyond our space policy focus, but the end result is expected to be more defense spending and less non-defense spending (e.g. NASA). We’ll keep you posted as details emerge.

A few hearings may be of interest.  One is definitely space-related and two others could be.

The one definitely space-related is Tuesday’s House Science, Space, and Technology subcommittee hearing on NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Through CLPS, NASA purchases services from commercial companies to put NASA science and technology payloads on the lunar surface. The companies design, build, own, and launch the spacecraft and are expected to find non-NASA customers to close the business case.

Four CLPS missions have launched so far. The extent to which they’ve been successful depends on one’s point of view. Only one — Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission-1 — is an unequivocal success.

As for the other three, Astrobotic’s Peregrine didn’t reach the Moon because of a propulsion failure, and the two Intuitive Machines missions, IM-1 and IM-2, got there but tipped over on landing and only a small amount of science was accomplished. Some might label them failures because they didn’t accomplish their main objectives, but NASA and the companies consider them successes because they provide lessons learned that will eventually lead to a commercial lunar economy.

Hearing witnesses are Nicky Fox, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD); Brett Denevi, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab; John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic; Steve Altemus, President and CEO of Intuitive Machines; and Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly.

The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing with Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg on Wednesday. The title — Safety First: Restoring Boeing’s Status as a Great American Manufacturer —  and Chairman Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) comment that “the flying public” deserves to hear what Boeing is doing to restore trust suggests the focus is commercial aircraft, but Starliner might come up. Cruz and Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) are both deeply interested in space. We’re listing the hearing on our Calendar just in case. NASA said on Thursday that they and Boeing are still working to solve the propulsion problems Starliner experienced last summer and the next flight isn’t expected until the end of this year or early next. NASA hasn’t decided if it will carry crew or just cargo.

Similarly, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing on the nomination of Lt. Gen. J. Daniel “Razin” Caine (Ret.) to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) on Tuesday might not focus much on space, but we’re including it in our list. If confirmed he’ll replace Gen. C.Q. Brown. A former F-16 pilot, Caine, 56, would be the first Air National Guardsman to chair the Joint Chiefs. He retired from the military in December, but is being recalled. His varied career doesn’t seem to include any assignments specifically space-related, but national security space is a topic of great interest in Congress right now so it might well come up. The CJCS is the principal military adviser to the President, National Security Council, and Secretary of Defense.

Off the Hill, the Space Studies Board (SSB) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is holding its annual Space Science Week Monday through Friday. Some sessions are open and some are closed. All the open sessions (which is most of them) will be livestreamed. The six SSB standing committees meet individually or jointly on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and/or Friday.  There’s an intriguing public lecture on Wednesday evening: “The Warped Side of Our Universe: Exploring the Intersection of Art and Science” with a conversation between physicist Kip Thorne and artist Lia Halloran.

Tuesday is a plenary session with Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), chairman of the House SS&T space subcommittee (he’ll have to rush to get back to the Hill in time for the CLPS hearing); NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro and other top NASA officials — Mark Clampin, Acting Deputy Associate Administrator (AA) for SMD since Nicky Fox will be testifying at that time, Lori Glaze, Acting AA for Exploration Systems Development, and Kevin Coggins, Deputy AA for Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN); and representatives of ESA, COSPAR, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and JAXA.  Also on the agenda are Taylee Baynard from Lockheed Martin Space, Shirley Dyke from Purdue, and journalist Leonard David.  A really terrific line-up.

Lots of other great events as usual, but we need to leave it there.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and add to our Calendar or changes to these.

Monday, March 31

• Crew-9 Post-Mission News Conference, JSC, 2:30 pm ET (NASA+)
• Launch of Fram2 Private Astronaut Mission Around the Poles, KSC, 9:46 pm ET (and three other opportunities over the next 4.5 hours)

Monday-Friday, March 31-April 4

• Space Studies Board’s Space Science Week (National Academies), National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC (some sessions are open, some are closed; open sessions will be livestreamed)
  • Plenary session, Tuesday, 8:30 am – 6:00 pm ET (livestreamed)
  • Public Lecture, Wednesday, 6:30 pm ET — “The Warped Side of Our Universe: Exploring the Intersection of Art and Science” (livestreamed)

Tuesday, April 1

• ESA Media Briefing on Space Debris, Bonn, Germany, 5:00 am ET (11:00 CET) Watch on ESA Web TV
• SASC Hearing on Nomination of Lt. Gen. J. Dan Caine (Ret.) to be General and serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, G-50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET (webcast)
• House SS&T Hearing on NASA’s CLPS Initiative, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:00 am ET (webcast)

Tuesday-Friday, April 1-4

• 9th European Conference on Space Debris, Bonn, Germany

Wednesday, April 2

• Senate Commerce Cmte Hearing with Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg, G-50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 10:00 am ET

Thursday, April 3

• Sustaining Innovation in the New Space Age (BEI), virtual, 9:00-10:30 am ET
• Space News Interview with UNOOSA Director Aatri Holla-Maini, virtual, 11:00 am-12:00 pm ET

 

This article has been updated and corrected. (We incorrectly identified Denevi as Deputy PI for Lunar Trailblazer, a lunar orbiter that launched with IM-2, but she was Deputy PI for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera and currently is leading the geology team for Artemis III. APL’s Rachel Klima is the Deputy PI for Trailblazer. Both spoke at the AAS Goddard Symposium and we confused the two.)