Russia launched a new crew to the International Space Station today, Soyuz MS-29. Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, and NASA astronaut Anil Menon, docked at the ISS about three hours later for an 8-month mission.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of July 12-18, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.
Japan’s ispace robotic lunar landing company is expanding into the lunar infrastructure business through an agreement with SpaceX. Instead of just landing on the Moon, they are offering end-to-end services starting with design through landing and mobile operations on the lunar surface.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the TWO weeks of July 5-18, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions.
Katalyst Space’s LINK on-orbit servicing spacecraft is on its way to reboost NASA’s Swift observatory. Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus-XL rocket launched LINK this morning, July 3, and contact was successfully established, the first step in a series of checkouts before it approaches Swift in what NASA calls a high-risk, high-reward effort. [Update, July 4: orbital parameters added.]
United Launch Alliance sent another batch of Amazon Leo satellites into orbit today. Except for six rockets under contract to Boeing for Starliner missions, it was the last launch of the venerable Atlas V with its Russian RD-180 engines. When ULA will launch next is up in the air. No Starliner dates are set as Boeing and NASA continue to investigate what went wrong with the 2024 Crew Flight Test. ULA is replacing Atlas V with Vulcan, but Vulcan launches are on hold following an anomaly earlier this year.
NASA awarded about $600 million in contracts to three companies today to put robotic landers on the Moon carrying NASA payloads. They are part of NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s “Moon Base” effort to send 10 robotic landers to the Moon every year beginning in 2027 during Phase 1 of the Moon Base project. One surprise is that NASA is considering repurposing an existing engineering development model of a Martian rover he calls PROMISE and send that to the Moon as well.
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 28-July 4, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House is in session for part of the week. The Senate is in recess except for pro forma sessions.
NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel and the Government Accountability Office are raising concerns about the future of the International Space Station and the pace of efforts to build commercial space stations to replace it. ASAP is cautioning NASA not to cut the ISS budget because managing risks on the aging facility is increasingly difficult. GAO found that NASA has not made an assessment of the likelihood or duration of a gap between the end of the ISS and the availability of commercial space stations, nor has it documented the process it will use next year to decide whether or not to deorbit the ISS in 2030 as planned.
A new report from NASA’s Office of Inspector General spells out dire launch infrastructure needs at Kennedy Space Center and Wallops Flight Facility. One solution is for Congress to pass legislation giving NASA authority to receive money from commercial partners for capital infrastructure investments. DOD was given such authority more than a decade ago.