In a post on NASA’s Science Mission Directorate website yesterday, NASA disclosed establishment of a Mars Sample Return Strategy Review Team to assess 11 studies of alternatives for returning samples of Mars to Earth. The independent team, led by former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, will not recommend acquisition strategies or partners, but examine options. The agency also set up a “NASA analysis team” composed mostly of NASA employees to provide programmatic input.

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SpaceX has set a new record for Falcon 9 launches in a single year, with the 97th successful liftoff overnight. That breaks their record of 96 in 2023 with many weeks still to go in 2024. Add in the three suborbital Starship test flights and they’ve already reached 100 successful launches this year despite one launch failure. They also experienced a landing failure plus a second stage anomaly so the year has not been trouble free, but it is an impressive achievement.

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The Europa Clipper spacecraft is on its way to Jupiter. After an on-time liftoff, it separated from the rocket, began transmitting back to Earth, and unfolded its huge solar arrays.  It has a long trip ahead, 1.8 billion miles, that will take it to Mars and back to Earth for gravity assists, finally reaching its destination in April 2030.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com from September 30-October 13, 2024 including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

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NASA, SpaceX, and the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron gave the green light this afternoon for Europa Clipper to launch tomorrow at 12:06 pm ET.  The weather is 95 percent favorable. The launch was delayed from October 10 primarily because of Hurricane Milton. If anything should go awry tomorrow, it can launch any day between now and November 6 and still get to its destination, Jupiter’s moon Europa, in 2030.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 13-19, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until after the November elections, except for pro forma sessions.

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SpaceX succeeded today in catching its biggest booster, Super Heavy, back at the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. Standing 71 meters tall and 9 meters in diameter, the booster separated from the Starship second stage, flipped around and returned to the launch tower from which it had just departed in another impressive engineering achievement for the company. Meanwhile, Starship continued on its journey to what appears to have been a successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

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A space trifecta of sorts is coming up tomorrow morning, October 13. At the moment, within an hour-and-a-half NASA’s Crew-8 will depart the International Space Station, SpaceX will launch the Starship IFT-5 test flight and try to catch the Super Heavy booster back at the launch site, and Blue Origin will make a second try at launching a new human-rated New Shepard vehicle. 

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Today the FAA approved SpaceX’s plan to launch the fifth Integrated Flight Test, IFT-5, of its Starship/Super Heavy rocket. In fact, the FAA approved multiple launches using the IFT-5 profile as well as changes SpaceX requested for IFT-6, although further modifications could entail additional review. SpaceX plans to launch IFT-5 from Boca Chica, Texas tomorrow, October 13, with a 30 minute launch window that opens at 7:00 am Central Time (8:00 am Eastern). For the first time, it will try to catch the Super Heavy booster as it returns to Earth.

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The FAA approved the return to flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket late this afternoon. Space X suspended all Falcon 9 launches after a second stage anomaly on September 28 following the otherwise successful launch of Crew-9 to the International Space Station. The FAA allowed SpaceX to launch ESA’s Hera mission on Monday, but other flights have had to wait until now.

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