NASA

6–7 minutes

Updated 6:10 p.m. Eastern with NASA statement.

WASHINGTON — NASA’s acting administrator says he plans to “open up the contract” SpaceX holds to land astronauts on the moon for the Artemis 3 mission because the company has fallen behind schedule.

In appearances on CNBC and Fox News on Oct. 20, NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said NASA would allow other companies to compete to land astronauts on the moon for Artemis 3, a mission currently assigned to SpaceX’s Starship under a Human Landing System (HLS) contract awarded in 2021.

“SpaceX had the contract for Artemis 3,” Duffy said on CNBC. “The problem is they’re behind. They push their timelines out, and we’re in a race against China. The president and I want to get to the moon in this president’s term.”

“So, I’m going to open up the contract,” he continued. “I’m going to let other space companies compete with SpaceX, like Blue Origin, and again, whatever one can get us there first, to the moon, we’re going to take.”

Duffy made similar remarks on Fox News. “SpaceX has the contract. SpaceX is an amazing company. They do remarkable things, but they’re behind schedule,” he said. “So, I’m in the process of opening that contract up.”

“We’re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first,” he said.

Duffy did not explain how such a “space race” would work or how it would be funded. Asked for further details, Bethany Stevens, NASA’s press secretary, provided only transcripts of Duffy’s television appearances. Most of NASA’s public affairs staff are currently furloughed because of the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.

She provided more details in a separate statement late in the day Oct. 20. “NASA’s Human Landing System program has given both SpaceX and Blue Origin the opportunity to present acceleration approaches by Oct. 29,” she stated. “NASA is also going to request plans from the entire commercial space industry – through an RFI – for how NASA can increase the cadence of our mission to the moon.”

The comments are the first public acknowledgment by NASA’s acting leader that development of the HLS version of Starship is behind schedule. Duffy previously maintained that Artemis 3 would launch in 2027, the agency’s official target, even as multiple Starship test flight failures earlier this year made that timeline increasingly unlikely.

In late July, Duffy told social media influencers attending the Crew-11 launch that SpaceX executives, including company president Gwynne Shotwell, assured him Starship would be ready for Artemis 3. “They feel very comfortable on Starship. They feel like they’re on pace for the lander,” he said then. “They said if there’s a holdup for Artemis 3, it’s not going to be them.”

After former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told a Senate committee in September it was unlikely the United States would return humans to the moon before China’s first crewed landing, Duffy pushed back. “We are going to beat the Chinese to the moon. We are going to make sure that we do this safely. We’re going to do it fast. We’re going to do it right,” he said in an internal NASA town hall, without suggesting a change in approach for Artemis 3.

In his Oct. 20 interviews, Duffy acknowledged that Artemis 3 likely would not launch in 2027. On CNBC, after discussing Artemis 2’s planned launch as soon as next February, he said that “Artemis 3 comes a couple years after that.”

One of the competitors Duffy mentioned was Blue Origin, which has a separate HLS award to develop its Blue Moon Mark 2 lander for missions beginning with Artemis 5. The company reportedly has studied ways to adapt its smaller Blue Moon Mark 1 lander for a crewed mission, although one industry source described those concepts as “jury-rigged” and noted that Mark 1 currently cannot lift off from the lunar surface with any useful payload.

Other companies are also examining lunar lander concepts. “Throughout this year, Lockheed Martin has been performing significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers that would provide options to NASA for a safe solution to return humans to the moon as quickly as possible,” Bob Behnken, vice president of exploration and technology strategy at Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement.

“We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies, and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy’s request to meet our country’s lunar objectives,” he said, without providing details about the Lockheed lander concept.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk appeared unconcerned about potential competition. “They won’t,” he said in a social media post responding to a comment that it was “silly” to think another company would have a lander ready before Starship. “SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry.”

“Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words,” he added.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — Five years after the first countries signed the Artemis Accords, a growing group of nations continues to work on how to implement the guidelines contained in the document.

Oct. 13 marked the fifth anniversary of a signing ceremony where the United States and seven other countries — Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom — became the first to sign the Accords, which outline norms of behavior for space exploration.

The anniversary passed with little fanfare, in part because the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, now more than two weeks long, has kept NASA from issuing press releases or other public statements on most topics.

NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy did note the anniversary in a social media post. “Together, we’re committed to peaceful, safe and transparent exploration of the moon and beyond,” he wrote.

The number of Artemis Accords signatories has grown sevenfold in the past five years, with 56 nations now having signed. The most recent was Senegal, which joined at a NASA Headquarters event July 24.

Representatives of 39 of the 56 signatories met Sept. 29 during the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia. The closed-door meeting, co-chaired by Australia, the UAE and the United States, focused on implementing elements of the Accords, including safety zones and interoperability.

“As we get closer to returning to the moon at the beginning of next year with humans for the first time since 1972, it’s more and more important that the topics we discussed were on the table,” said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, during a news conference at the IAC after the meeting.

One major issue discussed was noninterference, said Ahmad Belhoul Al Falasi, a UAE government minister who chairs the board of the UAE Space Agency. One section of the Artemis Accords addresses deconfliction of space activities, including the use of “safety zones” to prevent harmful interference.

“A safety zone is not well defined,” he said, noting questions such as how large it should be. “A second point is, what is considered harmful interference?”

He said the meeting explored several scenarios involving countries and companies both within and outside the Artemis Accords but did not elaborate on how those examples shaped the discussion.

“A lot of work has been done on the open sharing of scientific data,” another principle of the Accords, Kshatriya said. NASA plans to host a workshop on that topic within the next year “with the overarching theme of transparency being the most important thing for us.”

A third topic was orbital debris, particularly around the moon, said Enrico Palermo, head of the Australian Space Agency. “On Earth, we have an atmosphere where objects can reenter and demise. We don’t have that on the moon, and we also don’t have as many stable orbits,” he said. “Preserving lunar orbits and keeping them sustainable for exploration for all countries was an ongoing focus.”

A broader challenge is encouraging more nations to join the Accords and take part in discussions. Only four countries have signed so far this year, compared to 19 in 2024.

“We want more people to join us and explore with us,” Kshatriya said. “But when resources are constrained, how do you make sure that emerging spacefaring nations are able to participate in this incredible adventure?”

“Some members are trying to find their value add for the Accords,” Al Falasi said. An upcoming workshop in Peru, he added, will explore how to ensure all signatories can actively participate in discussions. “We want to have a very well-defined way that enables these countries to contribute.”

One ongoing concern is the lack of public detail about what the Accords members have discussed or agreed on. Asked at the news conference if there would be a formal communiqué summarizing outcomes and recommendations, Al Falasi said that responsibility rests with NASA.

Kshatriya said that would come “as soon as we consolidate the recommendations and publish a plan for the next workshop” in Peru. “We’ll follow up as soon as we can.”

~1 minute

October 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM UTC

Updated on

October 9, 2025 at 6:14 PM UTC

Jared Isaacman and President Donald Trump have met in recent weeks and discussed reviving the fintech billionaire’s nomination to lead NASA, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A decision to reconsider the Elon Musk ally would mark a major reversal for Trump after the White House revoked the job offer in May citing Isaacman’s ties to Democratic politicians. That left NASA without a long-term leader as the space agency grapples with funding and job cuts and races to bring astronauts back to the moon.

3–4 minutes

SYDNEY — The director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has abruptly stepped down, becoming the third NASA center director to leave in recent months.

In a Sept. 24 memo to employees, Joseph Pelfrey announced he would no longer serve as director of the Alabama center but said he hoped to continue working for the agency in some way.

Pelfrey did not give a specific reason for his departure but suggested he was leaving to allow NASA leadership to select its own choice to lead the center.

“As the Agency continues to embark on a bold mission to return humans to the moon, it will take the full attention of its leaders and the people they serve. It will also be important for agency leadership to move forward with a team they choose to execute the tasks at hand,” he wrote. “With that in mind, it’s time for me to step out of the Center Director role.”

He added that he would work with NASA leadership “to pursue new ways I can serve our space program and our great Nation” but did not elaborate.

Pelfrey became director of Marshall in February 2024 after serving as acting director from June 2023, when the previous director, Jody Singer, retired. He joined Marshall in 2004 as an aerospace engineer and rose through the ranks, becoming deputy center director in 2022.

NASA has not issued a formal statement about Pelfrey’s departure, and the agency’s main web page for the center still listed him as director as of Sept. 27. Elsewhere on the site, Rae Ann Meyer, the center’s deputy director, was listed as acting director. Meyer joined Marshall as an engineer in 1989 and became deputy director in May 2024.

Pelfrey is the third NASA center director to leave in recent months. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced May 7 that Laurie Leshin would resign as director effective June 1, citing personal reasons. David Gallagher, JPL’s associate director for strategic integration, succeeded her.

NASA announced July 21 that Makenzie Lystrup was leaving as director of the Goddard Space Flight Center effective Aug. 1. Cynthia Simmons, Goddard’s deputy center director, replaced her on an acting basis.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Artemis 2 mission around the moon could launch as soon as early February, as both agency officials and the mission’s four-person crew say they are ready for the flight.

At a Sept. 23 briefing at the Johnson Space Center, officials reaffirmed the current schedule, which calls for a launch no later than April 2026, but could take place as soon as February.

Lakiesha Hawkins, acting deputy associate administrator in NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, for the first time offered a specific no-earlier-than launch date: Feb. 5.

“Of course, there will be more work in order to nail that down,” she said. Launch periods for Artemis 2 last four to eight days each month, with most February opportunities in the evening.

Hawkins said there is pressure to accelerate Artemis 2, which has already slipped from 2024 because of Orion spacecraft issues, including unexpected heat shield erosion seen on Artemis 1 in 2022.

“The message has been clear to us that this administration asked us to acknowledge that we are indeed in what people have commonly called a second space race,” she said. “There is a desire for us to return to the surface of the moon and to be the first to return to the surface of the moon.”

“NASA’s objective, though, is to do so safely,” she added. “We have done assessments and we have worked together as a team to ensure that the progress that we are making is moving in an accelerated fashion, but that we are doing everything that we can to also ensure this mission is successful and that we return the crew back home safely.”

Hawkins said she does not expect launch preparations will be affected by a potential government shutdown at the start of the new fiscal year Oct. 1. Artemis has previously received exemptions to continue work during shutdowns on safety grounds. “We anticipate in this particular case that this is obviously very safety-critical,” she said, “and we anticipate being able to request and being able to continue to move forward on Artemis 2.” Hardware preparations

Other officials at the briefing said there are no showstoppers to a launch early next year as workers prepare the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

“The SLS rocket is pretty much stacked and ready to go,” said Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, Artemis launch director at Kennedy Space Center. The final major element, the Orion stage adapter, is scheduled for installation this week.

Orion is completing processing, including installation of its launch abort system. That work should wrap up within a week, after which the spacecraft will move to the Vehicle Assembly Building to be mounted on SLS.

The integrated SLS/Orion will then undergo months of testing in the VAB and at Launch Complex 39B, including a practice countdown with the Artemis 2 crew and a wet dress rehearsal where the rocket is fueled and counts down to T-29 seconds.

Blackwell-Thompson said hydrogen leak issues that delayed Artemis 1 have been resolved with hardware changes and lessons learned about managing flow rates and pressure. “We learned an awful lot with Artemis 1,” she said. Mission profile

Artemis 2 will be a roughly 10-day mission, beginning with a day in an elliptical Earth orbit to test Orion life support systems and perform a proximity operations demonstration, maneuvering to within 10 meters of the SLS upper stage.

The spacecraft will then conduct a translunar injection burn, placing it on a free-return trajectory around the moon before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego. Crew readiness

At a Sept. 24 briefing, the four American and Canadian astronauts flying on Artemis 2 said they were ready for the mission.

“There is no frustration in what we would perceive, from the outside looking in, as delays,” said mission commander Reid Wiseman. He said the crew has closely followed the vehicle’s progress and believes “now is the right time to fly.”

He added, though, that preparations are not being rushed. “This is a test mission. We just do not anchor on dates. We’re going to launch when this vehicle is ready, when this team is ready.”

The crew also announced the Orion spacecraft’s name: Integrity.

Wiseman said the name emerged from discussions among the four primary crew members and two backups, inspired by the core values of NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, among other factors.

“Then we looked out at what is going on with Artemis 2, what do we want this to be,” he said, citing both enabling a future Artemis 3 landing and providing “peace and hope for all humankind.”

“So we’re going to fly around the moon in the spacecraft Integrity,” he said.

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded a $30 million contract to a startup to attempt to boost the orbit of an astronomy satellite before it reenters next year.

NASA announced Sept. 24 that Katalyst Space won a $30 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 contract to reboost the orbit of the Swift spacecraft in spring 2026. Katalyst will send a spacecraft to dock with Swift and raise its orbit before it makes an uncontrolled reentry, expected in the second half of 2026.

Katalyst received one of two study contracts from NASA on Aug. 11 to examine the feasibility of raising Swift’s orbit. The other went to a team led by Astroscale U.S. and Cambrian Works. The short studies explored how spacecraft already in development could be used to perform the maneuver.

“Given how quickly Swift’s orbit is decaying, we are in a race against the clock, but by leveraging commercial technologies that are already in development, we are meeting this challenge head-on,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, acting director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said in a statement.

“This is a forward-leaning, risk-tolerant approach for NASA. But attempting an orbit boost is both more affordable than replacing Swift’s capabilities with a new mission, and beneficial to the nation — expanding the use of satellite servicing to a new and broader class of spacecraft,” he said.

Katalyst said it will use a low Earth orbit demonstrator of its planned LINK geostationary servicing spacecraft for the reboost. That demonstrator, already scheduled to launch in 2026, would dock with Swift and raise its orbit.

LINK will use a custom-built mechanism to attach to Swift, which lacks interfaces to support servicing. Successfully doing so, Katalyst argues, would demonstrate the ability to service spacecraft not equipped with docking or similar systems, opening new commercial and national security markets.

“This is about saving a world-class science asset while proving the United States can execute rapid, on-orbit response,” Ghonhee Lee, chief executive of Katalyst Space, said in a statement.

Sarah Bradley, operations lead at Katalyst, told SpaceNews the company plans to start spacecraft assembly, integration and testing in December. “We’re confident in our ability to execute on this incredibly tight timeline, with less than eight months to delivery,” she said.

Bradley said the $30 million contract will fully fund the mission, including launch, although the company has not disclosed launch plans for LINK. The company estimates the mission will cost $10 million plus launch. Swift’s unusual orbit — with an inclination of about 20 degrees — will require a dedicated launch.

Katalyst, based in Flagstaff, Arizona, has not flown its own mission. In April 2024 it acquired Atomos Space, which flew a mission in March 2024 to test rendezvous, docking and refueling technologies. The two spacecraft on that mission, however, suffered several technical problems during commissioning.

The Artemis II crew members named their Orion spacecraft Integrity during a news conference Sept. 24.

5–6 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA announced its newest class of astronauts Sept. 22 as agency leaders and lawmakers emphasized their intent to return humans to the moon before China.

At a ceremony at Johnson Space Center, NASA introduced the 10 members of the newest astronaut class, formally known as Group 24. The class includes scientists, engineers and pilots, with experience ranging from flying military aircraft in combat to working on the Curiosity Mars rover.

Group 24 stands out in several respects. The six women and four men represent NASA’s first astronaut class with more women than men.

It also includes the first American astronaut candidate with prior orbital spaceflight experience. Anna Menon, a SpaceX senior engineer, flew on the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission a year ago on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The only other NASA astronaut candidate with prior spaceflight experience was Joe Engle, an X-15 pilot who briefly flew above the 50-mile (80.5-kilometer) altitude the U.S. government recognizes as the boundary of space before joining the astronaut corps.

NASA selected the 10 candidates from a pool of 8,000 applicants. “This selection was challenging, competitive and very difficult,” said Norm Knight, director of flight operations at Johnson. “But what we have for you here today is a group of individuals who are not only exceptional but who will be inspirational for the United States of America and for our planet.”

Among the new astronauts is Lauren Edgar, a planetary scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. She worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers and Curiosity Mars rover and was part of a team of scientists setting science goals for Artemis 3.

In an interview with SpaceNews after the event, Edgar said she had wanted to be an astronaut since seeing a shuttle launch in second grade. “That’s what set me on this path to becoming a planetary scientist,” she said. “This dream of becoming an astronaut has always been there, but I didn’t realize that it was possible until very recently.”

She applied to the previous two astronaut classes and, while not selected, served as a geology instructor for their training. “I’ve worked with some of these folks, and it is wonderful to now be here and be a part of the crew office with them.”

Edgar now moves from setting Artemis science goals to potentially carrying them out. “I’m excited to, in some ways, continue to work with all of those colleagues, but just in a new role that I have now,” she said. “So same end goal, just a different approach.”

She added that she had no specific preference for the kind of mission she would like to fly once training is complete. “I think this is just a really, really exciting time to be coming on board.” Beating China to the moon

Edgar and the other astronaut candidates will begin two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments. Those could include some of the last missions to the International Space Station and the first to the station’s commercial successors, as well as Artemis missions to the moon.

Officials used the ceremony to stress that Artemis remains on track to return astronauts to the moon before China, which has said it plans to land crews there by the end of the decade. Artemis 3, the first crewed lunar landing mission, is scheduled for mid-2027.

Some former NASA officials, including former Administrator Jim Bridenstine, have cast doubt on that schedule, citing delays with the lunar lander version of SpaceX’s Starship. “It is highly unlikely that we will land on the moon before China,” Bridenstine told the Senate Commerce Committee on Sept. 3.

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel raised similar concerns at a Sept. 19 meeting. The schedule for Starship’s development “is significantly challenged and, in our estimation, could be years late for a 2027 Artemis 3 moon landing,” said Paul Hill, a panel member, after visiting SpaceX’s Starbase site and meeting with company executives.

Sean Duffy, NASA’s acting administrator, pushed back on those doubts.

“Some are challenging our leadership in space, say, like the Chinese,” he said. “I’ll be damned if the Chinese beat NASA, or beat America, back to the moon. We’re going to win.”

Duffy did not directly address recent criticism of Artemis, but his comments echoed remarks he made at an internal town hall Sept. 4, the day after Bridenstine’s testimony.

Leaders of two congressional committees made similar vows at the event. “We will go back to the moon. We will beat the Chinese to the moon,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee.

“NASA’s work is more important than ever. It is national security, folks. We must be on that lunar surface first,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, chair of the House Science Committee. “This is important. We cannot fail there.”

Duffy added that the new class may not stop at the moon. “One of these 10 could actually be one of the first Americans to put their boots on the Mars surface.”

4–5 minutes

PARIS — NASA has revived a robotic lunar rover mission by selecting Blue Origin to deliver it to the moon’s south pole in 2027.

NASA announced Sept. 19 that Blue Origin won a $190 million task order under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program to take the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, or VIPER, to the moon in late 2027.

Blue Origin will use its Blue Moon Mark 1 lander to transport VIPER. It will be the lander’s second flight, after a mission expected to launch as soon as later this year. VIPER will search for water ice at the lunar south pole, including in permanently shadowed craters.

The award marks a reversal for NASA. In July 2024, the agency said it would cancel VIPER, citing cost overruns and concerns about further growth. Officials also worried the original lander, Astrobotic’s Griffin, would not be ready for a planned September 2025 launch.

NASA later sought proposals for partnerships that could send VIPER to the moon without extra agency funding. On May 7, though, it said it would not pursue a commercial partnership and instead explore unspecified “alternative approaches.”

The new CLPS task order, called CS-7, had not been publicly disclosed before the Blue Origin award. NASA spokespersons could not answer questions about it immediately after the announcement, made near the close of business Sept. 19.

This CLPS award is structured differently. The base award covers only work to design accommodations for VIPER on Blue Moon and to get it off the lander and onto the surface after touchdown. An option would then fund delivery of VIPER. NASA states that option would be exercised after completion of the design work as well as a successful landing of the first Blue Moon mission.

“We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals,” Nicky Fox, NASA associate administrator for science, said in a statement. “This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly — supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable.”

“Our second Blue Moon MK1 lander is already in production and well-suited to support the VIPER rover,” Blue Origin said in a social media post. “Building on the learnings from our first MK1 lander, this mission is important for future lunar permanence and will teach us about the origin and distribution of water on the moon.”

NASA is now effectively paying for two rides for VIPER. The agency kept its original CLPS award to Astrobotic, repurposing it to demonstrate Griffin’s landing capabilities. Griffin is now slated to carry commercial payloads, including the FLIP rover developed by Astrolab.

Astrobotic said it chose not to bid on the new VIPER opportunity. “Given the compressed timeline of the CS-7 mission and our commitments to existing customers, Astrobotic made the strategic decision not to submit a bid,” the company said in a statement to SpaceNews. “Our focus remains on the successful delivery of our customer payloads aboard Griffin-1, and our third lander mission thereafter.”

NASA has not disclosed details on the timeline for the CS-7 award or the number of bids it received.

3–4 minutes

WASHINGTON — NASA has restored contact with one of a pair of space science satellites that ran into problems shortly after its July launch.

In a Sept. 11 statement, NASA said it reconnected with SV1, one of two identical Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamics Reconnaissance Satellites, or TRACERS, launched July 23.

The other spacecraft, SV2, completed post-launch commissioning without issue. SV1, however, had a power subsystem problem two days after launch that caused intermittent contacts. On Aug. 5, NASA said SV1 appeared to operate only when its solar arrays were in sunlight. Controllers planned to try restoring communications later in August, when the arrays were better aligned with the sun.

The Sept. 11 update, NASA’s first since Aug. 5, gave no new details about the problem. The mission team “is working to recover the spacecraft and establish science operations,” the agency said.

TRACERS is designed to use two spacecraft, passing through the same region of space up to two minutes apart, to study how the solar wind couples with Earth’s magnetic field. It’s not clear how science goals may change if only one spacecraft, built by Millennium Space Systems, is working.

TRACERS launched on a Falcon 9 rideshare mission that also carried several other NASA smallsats. They included Athena EPIC, or Economical Payload Integration Cost, a satellite with contributions from NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission will test modular satellite designs and an Earth observation instrument.

On Aug. 5, NASA reported SV1 never transmitted a beacon signal after launch, making it harder for controllers to identify the spacecraft and command it. That was the agency’s last update until Sept. 11.

In its Sept. 11 statement to SpaceNews, NASA said mission partners and manufacturer NovaWurks had confirmed the spacecraft’s location and were working to restore communications. “The team is also working to determine the cause of the initial missed signal acquisition and any factors that may have contributed to the delayed communication downlinks,” the agency said.

Another payload from the same launch, though, is performing well. NASA’s Polylingual Experimental Terminal, or PExT, is flying on the Bard satellite built by York Space Systems. PExT is testing communications across multiple satellite networks, including NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, or TDRS, system, along with commercial services.

NASA said Sept. 9 that Bard commissioning was complete and PExT commissioning was underway, with work set to wrap up by the end of September.

4–5 minutes

WASHINGTON — House appropriators offered support, but no specific funding, for several NASA missions slated for cancellation in the administration’s 2026 budget proposal.

The House Appropriations Committee approved a commerce, justice and science (CJS) spending bill on a 34-28 vote late Sept. 10, sending the measure to the full House.

The bill was largely unchanged from what the CJS subcommittee approved July 14. It includes $24.838 billion for NASA, nearly the same as the $24.875 billion the agency received in fiscal 2024 and 2025, and far above the $18.8 billion the administration proposed for fiscal 2026 in May.

Members adopted a manager’s amendment, a package of noncontroversial changes and corrections, on a voice vote. That amendment also made additions to the report accompanying the bill.

The report includes language expressing support for several NASA missions targeted for cancellation, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Juno mission at Jupiter and the New Horizons mission in the Kuiper Belt.

The report does not specify funding levels for those missions, but the “continues support” language signals to NASA that it should fund continue operations within the agency’s science budget.

The amendment added support for NASA proposals to establish a series of low-cost science missions, potentially done under commercial arrangements, to Mars.

The amendment also backed NASA’s involvement in Ultrasat, an astrophysics mission with Israel, after the administration’s budget request proposed ending the partnership. It added support for certain aeronautics programs and the Deep Space Food Challenge, a $3 million project in NASA’s space technology directorate. It also recommended NASA spend up to $10 million across its directorates on “transformational lightweight technologies and vehicles.”

During the markup session, members rejected most proposed amendments, primarily from Democrats seeking to restore funding for programs at other agencies.

One amendment from Rep. Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., sought to add funding for inspectors general at several agencies, including $9.3 million for NASA. It also proposed eliminating $85 million provided in the budget reconciliation bill enacted in July for NASA to enable a “space vehicle” transfer, moving the shuttle Discovery from the National Air and Space Museum to Space Center Houston.

“Consider the contrast at NASA,” he said. “While the agency is about to receive an additional $10 billion from the reconciliation bill, its inspector general faces a $7 million cut under the bill we’re considering here today.” Fully funding the inspector general, he argued, was needed to combat waste, fraud and abuse.

He added that while the reconciliation bill provided $85 million for the shuttle move, Smithsonian experts estimated the actual cost at $325 million. “It is unprecedented for Congress to remove an object from the Smithsonian collection and send it somewhere else.”

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the CJS subcommittee, opposed the amendment, noting the additional inspector general funds were not offset elsewhere in the bill.

“The ink has barely dried on this new legislation,” he said of the reconciliation bill, “and already my colleagues are seeking to amend and strike portions of it through the appropriations process. I can’t support that effort.”

The committee rejected the amendment largely along party lines, 33-27.

5–7 minutes

WASHINGTON — The inclusion of a 30-day demonstration mission in revised plans by NASA to support development of commercial space stations does not represent a permanent shift to shorter missions.

NASA officials used a Sept. 8 online industry day session to clarify aspects of a draft announcement for partnership proposals released Sept. 5 for the second phase of its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Destinations, or CLD, program.

That second phase, called Commercial Destinations – Development and Demonstration Objectives, or C3DO, will use funded Space Act Agreements, rather than fixed-price contracts, awarded to several companies to advance development of their commercial space station concepts. The C3DO phase will culminate with a demonstration mission to a company’s station featuring four people spending at least 30 days there.

That 30-day mission suggested a shift in how NASA plans to use space stations after the International Space Station, which is permanently crewed with individual missions lasting on average six months. A NASA policy directive in late July said earlier requirements for a “full operational capability” involving four-person crews on such stations continuously were no longer binding.

However, at the industry day, Angela Hart, manager of the CLD program, said the language in the draft solicitation should not be interpreted as a permanent shift to short-duration missions.

“I would not say that NASA has fully shifted to monthly crew rotations,” she said. “It is not NASA’s long-term goal to have only a one-month mission.”

The solicitation, she said, does not set long-term requirements for services. That will be left to a future third phase of the CLD program, involving certification of such stations and purchases of services.

Hart said NASA decided on 30 days as the length of that demonstration mission so that crews can fully test various systems on a commercial station while also doing research. “Thirty days is an adequate time for us to be able to test out all systems but also to provide a ‘minimum gap’ mission that would allow us to do certain science.”

The “gap” reference is to a potential gap in U.S. human presence in low Earth orbit, or LEO, between the retirement of the ISS and the beginning of operations of commercial stations. NASA had once desired an overlap between the ISS and commercial stations but has more recently emphasized minimizing a gap between them.

“Our development plans are not tied to the ISS lifetime or deorbit decisions, although NASA is very interested in reducing a gap, if at all possible,” she said. “The two are no longer tied. There isn’t a decision point that says when we have a CLD, we will end ISS.”

However, NASA is still working to minimize, or eliminate, any gap in crewed presence in LEO. “We have partners that have been working on commercial LEO platforms in a variety of ways, but we really want to put that into hyperspeed and get to a place where we’re making the next big steps, and it is driven by the gap,” Brian Hughes, NASA’s chief of staff, said during a talk Sept. 9 at the Global Aerospace Summit here.

“We don’t want the Chinese to be the only platform in LEO,” he said, citing the revised CLD strategy as a way to prevent that. “If we do that process right, and if we do it now, we should be able to prevent the gap.”

The shift in NASA’s approach for CLD development, including at least an initial focus on short-term missions, has caused companies proposing such stations to reevaluate their plans. None, though, have announced any substantive changes to their proposed stations or business plans.

“We’re still going ahead as is,” said Leslie Haas, executive vice president for business development in the space systems division of Voyager Technologies. She spoke during a session of the American Astronautical Society’s Glenn Space Technology Symposium Sept. 8, just before the NASA industry day.

Voyager holds a 65% stake in Starlab Space, the joint venture proposing the Starlab commercial station that won funding in the first phase of NASA’s CLD program. She said the company plans to conduct a critical design review of its station in December, a schedule that would support a launch of its station in 2029.

Haas said the company was looking for feedback from NASA about the changes in the program. “But overall, it’s still full speed ahead.”

Representatives of two other companies on the panel also proposing commercial space stations, Blue Origin and Vast, declined to answer a question during the session about how NASA’s revised CLD strategy affected their plans.