The two House committees that authorize and appropriate money for the Department of Defense made progress this week on legislation for FY2024, which begins on October 1. Defense spending is one of the few areas exempted from the steep budget cuts proposed by House Republicans, although the recommended funding for the U.S. Space Force is below the request. More action is scheduled in both the House and Senate next week.

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The two House committees that provide policy guidance and money for national security space activities made it clear this week that the location of U.S. Space Command headquarters is a key issue. The debate has lingered without resolution for more than two years as President Biden weighs whether to reverse his predecessor’s decision to move it to Alabama from Colorado. In Congress, the Alabama delegation is putting the battle front and center in this year’s defense authorization and appropriations legislation.

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The House Appropriations Committee has revealed its planned FY2024 spending levels for each of its 12 subcommittees. Although the figures still do not indicate what any specific agency will get, seeing them on paper makes the extent of the proposed cuts palpably evident. The subcommittee that funds NASA, for example, will have almost 30 percent less to spend in FY2024 than FY2023. Only three subcommittees get increases and they are less than inflation.

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Here are links to all the articles published on SpacePolicyOnline.com during the week of June 5-11, 2023, 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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Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 11-17, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

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The chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee today introduced legislation to take NOAA out of the Department of Commerce and establish it as an independent agency. Rep. Frank Lucas argues it will streamline NOAA operations and make them more transparent to Congress and the public. Only one part of NOAA, the Office of Space Commerce, would remain within the DOC.

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The United Launch Alliance successfully test fired the BE-4 engines for its new Vulcan rocket on the launch pad yesterday. The company is still investigating what happened in an earlier test of the rocket’s Centaur V upper stage and is not ready to set a date for Vulcan’s inaugural launch, but the completion of the Flight Readiness Firing is a step in that direction. Meanwhile, the U.S. Space Force assigned six launches to ULA today along with six for SpaceX.

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The successful Artemis I uncrewed test flight last year was a feather in NASA’s cap as it gets ready to return American astronauts to the lunar surface. But many challenges lie ahead. In fact, the man in charge of the program is worried Artemis I went so well that complacency will set in. Not to mention whether SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System will be ready in time or if he’ll get the budget he needs. All in all, he thinks that first post-Apollo Moon landing likely will slip from 2025 to 2026.

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NASA is acknowledging that the debt limit deal signed into law a few days ago means the agency probably will not get the 7.1 percent increase requested for FY2024. Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said it is “unlikely” and difficult choices lie ahead.

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The Independent Review Board established by NASA to look into what happened with the Psyche asteroid mission last year is giving JPL high marks for how it is responding to the recommendations. Psyche missed its launch window because engineers ran out of time to test the software, necessitating a one-year delay. NASA postponed a completely unrelated Venus mission, VERITAS, for at least three years because it needed the money to pay for Psyche’s overrun.

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