Former NASA Administrator and astronaut Richard Truly passed away on February 27, 2024. He was 86. Truly’s career will probably be best remembered for his leadership at NASA in returning the space shuttle to flight after the 1986 Challenger tragedy and his later appointment to head the agency by President George H. W. Bush, but he also served the nation in the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of Vice Admiral, earning the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross, and was the first commander of Naval Space Command.

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Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander, the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon in 52 years, is a success as far as the company and NASA are concerned. Despite a significant number of challenges that could have meant failure, including forgetting to enable the laser altimeter before launch, the mission is reaching the end of its expected lifetime having returned megabytes of data for its government and commercial customers.

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NASA said today the air leak in the Russian segment of the International Space Station has increased, but along with Russia’s Roscosmos stressed it does not present an imminent threat. The leak was first reported several years ago, but NASA and Roscosmos have downplayed it, insisting the affected section could be sealed off with little impact on ISS operations. Separately, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reiterated the need for an ISS deorbit tug to ensure the ISS does not make an uncontrolled reentry at the end of its lifetime, whenever that is.

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The top Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate and House agreed today to pass another Continuing Resolution this week to avoid a partial government shutdown. Funding for departments and agencies in four of the 12 appropriations bills otherwise would run out on Friday, March 1, and March 8 for the others. Now those in six of the bills will be funded until March 8 and the rest until March 22.  The FAA, NASA and NOAA are in the first bundle, while DOD is in the second.

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India introduced its first group of astronauts today. They will not be the first Indians to fly into space — that distinction belongs to Rakesh Sharma — but are the first official class of astronauts as part of India’s long term program for human spaceflight called Gaganyaan.

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Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander has sent back images days after tipping over while landing near the Moon’s South Pole. The U.S. company was not sure precisely where Odysseus set down because of problems with the navigation system, but it now has been spotted by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Odysseus is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the Moon since 1972 and the company expected operations to continue for at least 7 days, but said today it will lose contact tomorrow after just 5 days.

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This morning brought the good news that Japan’s lunar lander, SLIM, defied the odds yet again and has resumed tranmissions after surviving the bitter cold lunar night. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon had a rough landing and although ground controllers were able to get data and images back, the solar-powered lander was not expected to operate again after sundown three weeks ago.

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The FAA said today it has closed its mishap investigation of the second orbital flight test of SpaceX’s Starship, OFT-2, that took place last November. SpaceX must implement a set of corrective actions before the FAA will issue a license for OFT-3, but both the company and the FAA have indicated mid-March is a likely time frame.

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 25-March 2, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate returns to work on Monday, the House on Wednesday.

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Intuitive Machines co-founder and CEO Steve Altemus told reporters this afternoon that initial indications yesterday that the Odysseus lander was upright on the lunar surface were wrong. Apparently it is laying on its side, slightly tilted up. IM still expects to get most of the expected data from the payloads, but they continue to work communications issues to get data and images back to Earth.

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