Just 12 months after convincing President Trump to use his inaugural address to extol the vision of sending people to Mars, Elon Musk is changing course. Mars is still the long-term goal, but Musk now acknowledges that is years away. His near-term ambition is a “self-growing city” on the Moon, a planetary object he earlier eschewed as a distraction, that would be home to a manufacturing base for AI satellites and a mass driver to send them into deep space.  [Updated, February 11, 2026.]

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 8-14, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman issued a directive today to restore the agency’s “core competencies” in order to fulfill President Trump’s December 2025 Executive Order on Ensuring American Space Superiority. The directive identifies actions to be taken within either 30 days or 60 days by Center Directors and other top NASA leadership to begin expanding a strong core of civil servants strengthened by contractors and complemented by international and commercial partners.

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The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee unanimously approved a new NASA authorization bill today after adopting a number of amendments. Overall the bill reemphasizes congressional commitment to U.S. leadership in space, especially the Moon-to-Mars human exploration program. More than three dozen amendments were considered. Almost all were adopted by voice vote although an amendment to assess challenges with moving space shuttle Discovery to Houston was withdrawn and another to improve NASA’s ability to detect drones entering its airspace was defeated.

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The FY2026 Defense and Transportation-HUD appropriations bills were signed into law today, ending a brief partial government shutdown that began Friday night. The Defense bill funds the U.S. Space Force, and THUD funds the FAA and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Coupled with three others in the same package, 11 of the 12 FY2026 appropriations bills are now enacted. Only the Homeland Security bill, controversial because it funds ICE, remains in limbo under a two-week Continuing Resolution.

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Following a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) that ended early this morning, NASA decided to pass on this month’s opportunities to send astronauts around the Moon on the Artemis II mission. At a news conference this afternoon, NASA said they need to review data before deciding when they will be ready, but the earliest is March. The four Artemis II astronauts — three from NASA and one from the Canadian Space Agency — ended their pre-launch quarantine for now. Whenever they do launch, they will become the first humans to fly to the Moon since the Apollo era.

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As of 11:00 pm ET, NASA is still conducting the Artemis II Wet Dress Rehearsal test of the Space Launch System rocket that will send four astronauts around the Moon. The launch could be as early as Sunday, but the actual date depends on NASA’s assessment of the test results. The astronauts are in quarantine in Texas and ready to fly to Kennedy Space Center tomorrow if the answer is “go.” [UPDATE: The decision was to wait until March.]

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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 1-7, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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A Continuing Resolution (CR) keeping parts of the government operating, including Defense, expires at midnight tonight. This afternoon the Senate passed an amended version of legislation that would fund many of them, but the bill must return to the House for approval. Over the weekend they will run out of funds creating another partial government shutdown, but it could be short if the House quickly agrees to the Senate’s version.

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The Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) required before the launch of Artemis II has been postponed from January 31 to February 2 because of bitter cold weather in Florida. NASA’s strict weather rules prohibit both the test and launch in frigid temperatures. Now the earliest possible launch date for Artemis II is February 8 and the actual date could affect when NASA sends the next crew to the International Space Station.

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