NASA officials told an advisory committee today they are pausing the Mars Sample Return program as they assess alternative architectures in the wake of increased costs and constrained budgets. A recent independent review put the cost at $8-9.6 billion, far above earlier estimates. Although the House Appropriations Committee signalled support, the Senate Appropriations Committee did not. Concerned the Senate position may prevail when NASA’s FY2024 budget is finalized, they decided to take steps now to reduce near-term spending while determining a path forward.

Read More Read More

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 12-18, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

Read More Read More

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson confirms that President Biden is requesting initial funding for the ISS Deorbit Vehicle in a recent supplemental funding request. NASA’s safety advisory panel is adamant the vehicle must not be delayed. When Congress will get around to dealing with supplementals is a huge question since it is struggling just to pass another Continuing Resolution by Friday to keep the government open. New House Speaker Mike Johnson released his proposal today — a “laddered” CR extending funding for some agencies through January and others through February — a novel approach certain to face opposition.  Johnson got a taste of the challenges ahead last week when he had to pull two appropriations bills from the floor when he couldn’t garner enough support from his own party. Nonetheless, he plans to bring up the FY2024 bill that funds NASA and NOAA this week.

Read More Read More

ESA just signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. company Voyager Space and Europe’s Airbus to collaborate on the Starlab commercial space station project. The announcement comes three days after ESA announced plans to build a commercial cargo return vehicle to take supplies to and from Earth orbit starting with the International Space Station and later commercial stations built to replace it.  Apparently they had the Voyager-Airbus Starlab in mind.

Read More Read More

After finally reaching a regular cadence of launches, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will abandon the Unity spaceship after just two or three more flights as it shifts resources into the new Delta vehicle that it expects to be more profitable. Delta will be able to carry 50 percent more passengers and launch twice a week, but getting it ready means cutbacks both to Unity flights and the company’s workforce.

Read More Read More

The ministers of the European Space Agency’s member states today committed to a “paradigm shift” in the European space program and “asserting Europe’s rightful place in the world.” Meeting as part of a Space Summit in Seville, Spain in tandem with the European Union’s space program, the ESA Council declared it will lift Europe’s space ambitions for a “green and sustainable future, access to space, and space exploration.” Among the new initiatives is a commercial cargo return vehicle for the ISS that could evolve into a crewed capsule.

Read More Read More

Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com in the last week, October 30-November 5, 2023, including our “What’s Happening in Space Policy” for this coming week. Click on each title to read the entire article.

Read More Read More

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 5-11, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

Read More Read More

The two top Republicans on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee who oversee space activities introduced a long-awaited bill today addressing commercial space activities. Among the many provisions of the comprehensive legislation, the bill expands the responsibilities of the Office of Space Commerce in the Department of Commerce and extends a moratorium on the FAA promulating new commercial human spaceflight regulations.

Read More Read More

The House Appropriations Committee has posted the report to accompany the bill that includes FY2024 funding for NASA. The Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee approved the bill months ago and top-level funding levels were made public at the time, but details usually are not provided until a bill passes the full committee. That never happened. With the House getting ready to take up the bill soon, the report is now out. One program that fares much better in the House than in the Senate version is Mars Sample Return.

Read More Read More