A bipartisan group of Senators introduced a NASA authorization bill today that is very similar to one introduced in the closing days of the last Congress. The bill supports American leadership in space, including NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon and go on to Mars, leveraging private sector investment, and other ongoing priorities.
The House passed legislation this evening to keep the government funded through September 30, 2025 when FY2025 ends. The almost party-line vote, 217-213, underscored the differences between Republicans who insist it is a “clean” bill that simply extends current funding and Democrats who claim it will hurt hard-working Americans and empower the DOGE cuts underway in the Administration.
President Trump thinks sending people to Mars would be “great,” but it is not at the top of his priority list despite his endorsement of the idea in two major speeches since returning to the White House.
NASA has initiated Reductions-in-Force or RIFs at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. in compliance with a Trump Administration Executive Order. Two offices and part of another were closed and their employees notified they are being RIFed.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of March 9-16, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
DOD’s X-37B spaceplane is back on Earth after 434 days in space. The Boeing-built vehicle landed at 2:22 am ET this morning at Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA, a departure from recent landings at Kennedy Space Center, FL. The duration is far short of the 908 day record set by the previous mission, but one of this flight’s hallmarks was conducting aerobraking maneuvers.
Intuitive Machines finally identified exactly where the IM-2 lander set down on the Moon yesterday. Although it is not far from its intended landing site, Athena is in a crater where sunlight could not reach the solar cells to recharge the batteries and the mission was over in about 13 hours. Separately, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission-1, which landed on Sunday, is working well. Both are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.
France’s Minister for Higher Education and Research heralded Europe’s space launch autonomy following the first commercial launch of the new Ariane 6 rocket today. Philippe Baptiste, who until recently headed France’s space agency CNES, minced no words in pointing to the changing relationship between the United States and Europe and Elon Musk’s influence on U.S. space activities as a further impetus for Europe’s need to be able to launch its own satellites, not rely on others.
SpaceX succeeded in catching a Super Heavy booster this evening, but the Starship second stage was lost minutes later. It was the second Starship explosion in a row, again over the Caribbean.
Intuitive Machines got its second lander, IM-2, onto the lunar surface today, but like IM-1 last year it apparently is not in the correct orientation. IM-1 broke a leg and landed on its side, but company officials are not sure what happened this time. In fact, they don’t know if the Athena lander is upright, upside down, on its side, or somewhere in-between. They are communicating with Athena through a telemetry channel and can command some of the payloads, but it may take a couple of days to figure out the answers.