President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Jared Isaacman as his nominee to be the next NASA Administrator. Isaacman is a tech industry billionaire who has flown two spaceflights on Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon spacecraft already, with another pending plus the first crewed flight to Earth orbit on Starship. Isaacman’s most recent Crew Dragon flight, Polaris Dawn, included the first commercial spacewalks.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of December 1-7, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
NASA has provided more details of its decision to cancel the VIPER robotic lunar rover mission in response to a letter from a key House committee. It doesn’t specifically answer how it now will obtain the data VIPER was to glean, but offers some insight into the agency’s surprise decision to terminate a spacecraft that was already built and partially through pre-launch tests, yet continue the $323 million services contract to land it on the Moon.
Japan’s efforts to develop the Epsilon S rocket suffered another setback when the engine exploded during a test on Tuesday (Japan time). A test last year ended the same way. Epsilon S is an improved version of the Epsilon small rocket in development for almost two decades by JAXA and IHI Industries to compete on the world market for launches of cubesats and other small satellites.
Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com from November 18-24, 2024 including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.
Cosmonauts opening the new Progress MS-29 cargo ship that docked with the International Space Station yesterday observed a toxic smell and droplets. Decontamination procedures reportedly were implemented on both the U.S. and Russian segments. NASA posted a statement late today that air quality now is normal and there is no danger to the crew.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next two weeks, November 24-December 7, 2024, and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions and will return for legislative business next week.
As the NASA community ponders how the agency, especially the Artemis program, may fare in the second Trump Administration, one industry veteran is suggesting a new policy approach: have NASA focus on validating whether there really is the possibility of an economically self-sustaining presence on the Moon. That prospect underpins the excitement about Artemis, but NASA just canceled the one project that would have started answering that question — VIPER.
On the heels of SpaceX’s largely successful Starship test flight yesterday, the FAA has released a revised draft environmental assessment of SpaceX’s proposal to increase the cadence of launches at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, TX. An original version was released earlier this year and public meetings were scheduled to obtain input, but the FAA canceled them after learning of allegations that SpaceX violated clean water regulations. Those issues apparently have been resolved. The public may submit comments on the revised draft beginning today and the meetings are rescheduled for January.
SpaceX’s sixth Starship Integrated Flight Test, IFT-6, may not have thrilled everyone with another spectacular booster catch, but the hour-long mission demonstrated advancements in the vehicle’s performance that pushes it another step along the path to eventual operational flights.