Congressman Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), the new chair of the House space subcommittee, is fully behind the current plan to return astronauts to the Moon before going to Mars. President Trump’s inaugural declaration about sending people to Mars and his close association with Elon Musk has spurred a lot of chatter that the Administration might eschew the Moon and focus only on Mars, but Congress has long championed a return to the Moon first and that does not appear to be changing.

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NASA confirmed today they will use an existing SpaceX Crew Dragon for the next routine crew replacement at the International Space Station, Crew-10, instead of a new one. The swap allows Crew-9 to come home about two weeks sooner than the most recent plan. Two of the four members of Crew-9, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been on ISS longer than expected because of problems with the Boeing Starliner capsule that brought them there, but more recently their stay was extended because SpaceX’s new crew capsule is not ready.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 9-15, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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Boeing told employees working on the Space Launch System program yesterday that significant layoffs may take place by April because of anticipated changes by NASA. They added they would try to minimize job losses by redeploying personnel.

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During a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister ISHIBA Shigeru yesterday, President Trump reaffirmed U.S.-Japanese space cooperation on the Artemis program. Last year Japan committed to building a pressurized lunar rover and the United States agreed to send two Japanese astronauts to the lunar surface. The confirmation may alleviate some concerns that the Artemis program may be redirected to focus on Mars instead.  Japan also is participating in the Gateway lunar space station, but the joint statement mentioned only surface exploration.

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Senators Kevin Cramer and Dan Sullivan have introduced legislation to begin implementing President Trump’s Executive Order to create a missile-defense shield he calls an Iron Dome for America. The IRONDOME Act would authorize $19.5 billion in FY2026 for a variety of missile defense systems including space-based sensors and space-based missile defense.

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Yuri Borisov has been replaced as the head of Russia’s space state corporation Roscosmos, which oversees Russia’s participation in the International Space Station and other space activities.  His successor, Dmitry Bakanov, previously headed the Gonets satellite communications company and then was deputy transportation minister.

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Key Democrats on the House and Senate authorizing committees that oversee space activities are questioning the Department of Transportation and NASA about the roles Elon Musk is playing at those agencies and whether they present potential conflicts of interest.

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NASA is pausing the activities and meetings of community-based groups that provide input to NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.  The plan is to lift the suspensions after NASA ensures the groups’ activities comply with directives being issued by the White House, including those that terminate government diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

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In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, Boeing said it experienced a total of $523 million in losses in the Starliner Commercial Crew Program in 2024.  That brings to $2 billion the amount Boeing has had to pay for overruns on the fixed-price contract with NASA to build a space transportation system to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station. Boeing is still trying to figure out exactly what went wrong with the propulsion system on the Crew Flight Test mission last year and how to get Starliner ready for operational flights.

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