Senate Majority Leader John Thune finally got the eight Democrats/Independents he needed to vote in favor of a Continuing Resolution that will allow the government to reopen. Tonight’s vote was just one step — though a critically important one — in a process that could take several days to play out. Among other things, the CR is different from the one that passed the House on September 19 so the House will have to vote on it again.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 9-15, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House remains in recess indefinitely except for pro forma sessions. The Senate is in session this weekend and Majority Leader Thune says it will remain in session until a solution to the shutdown is found.
If all goes according to plan, Blue Origin will launch their New Glenn rocket for the second time tomorrow, Sunday, at 2:45 pm ET and land the first stage on a barge out at sea. New Glenn-2 is carrying two cubesats called ESCAPADE whose ultimate destination is Mars, though they will linger closer to Earth for the 12 months until the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens.
The FAA’s decision to restrict the number of airline flights to ensure the safety of air travel as some air traffic controllers call in sick during the government shutdown could impact space launches, too. Airspace around launch sites must be cleared during launches and reentries so the FAA will limit them to nighttime hours beginning Monday if the shutdown continues.
Andy Stofan, who was Director of Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center and then headed the space station program at NASA headquarters in the mid-1980s, passed away on October 26, 2025. He was 90.
China decided today to delay the return of their Shenzhou-20 crew because of concern that their spacecraft may have been struck by orbital debris. The three-man crew has been aboard the Tiangong-3 space station since April and their replacements arrived on Saturday.
This afternoon President Trump announced that he will nominate Jared Isaacman to be NASA Administrator. Isaacman was Trump’s original nominee for the job on January 20, but he withdrew it on May 31 after a falling out with Elon Musk who had recommended Isaacman. The Senate could act quickly on the nomination since Isaacman was already approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, but with the government shutdown breaking the record for the longest in history and many other nominations pending, time will tell if they treat this with urgency.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 2-8, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in session this week. The House continues to be in recess indefinitely except for pro forma sessions.
China launched a new three-person crew to their Tiangong-3 space station today. Shenzhou-21 lifted off at 11:44 am EDT and arrived at the space station about three hours later where the crew was greeted by the current residents with whom they will swap places. Tiangong-3 has been permanently occupied by crews rotating on roughly 6-month schedules since 2022. Coincidentally, today is the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Russian-American crew that initiated permanent occupancy of the International Space Station. They floated through the ISS hatch two days later on November 2, 2000 and not a day has gone by since then that people haven’t been aboard.
Two former NASA administrators are weighing in on the Artemis program and whether the U.S. will get back to the Moon before Chinese taikonauts arrive. Charlie Bolden and his successor Jim Bridenstine agree that getting a new set of American footprints on the Moon by mid-2027, the most recent official target, or even January 2029, a date mentioned by Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy, will be challenging. But they differ on the importance of beating China versus holding fast to the long-term goals set by the United States and its international partners. Meanwhile, SpaceX provided an update on the Starship Human Landing System, an essential element of the program as currently designed.