NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration

President-Elect Joe Biden has named which members are serving on the NASA agency review team as part of the incoming administration’s transition efforts from the Trump administration.

Today the Senate Appropriations Committee published a draft bill authorizing the 2021 budget for the U.S. government including NASA. If the bill becomes law, NASA is set to receive $23.5 billion in funding for the next fiscal year.

That’s an $866 million increase year-over-year, but the amount allocated to developing a human landing system for NASA’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the Moon by 2024 is underfunded by $2 billion.

Space policy expert and entrepreneur Greg Autry of California was nominated by the Trump administration on July 29 to fill the role of Chief Financial Officer at NASA. Fast-forward to today and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is moving at the speed of government to initiate Mr. Autry’s confirmation hearing.

Jim Bridenstine was an unconventional choice for NASA administrator in September 2017. The former Republican congressman from Oklahoma was nominated by the Trump administration despite a lack of experience in the space industry.

A hard right voting record and an ethics investigation while serving in congress resulted in a 50-49 party-line vote between Republicans and Democrats in April 2018. The Republican-controlled Senate confirmed the former member of the House of Representatives to lead America’s space agency despite complete opposition from Democrats.

Two and a half years later, Bridenstine has solidified his place in history as a beloved NASA administrator with the political chops to advance NASA’s Artemis program through Congress. Government space programs require funding to get results, and Congress is in charge of NASA’s budget.

NASA’s funding is a fraction of a percent of the government’s overall budget, and space exploration tends to be a bipartisan issue, but spending on space is constantly scrutinized and viewed as an area of cost-cutting regardless. It’s no small ask for members of Congress to support increased spending on space programs without direct benefits to constituents in their districts.

Despite his reputation for being an effective administrator, Bridenstine’s days at NASA appear numbered as President-Elect Joe Biden prepares to take office on January 20, 2021 — 72 days, in fact.

NASA is currently full steam ahead when it comes to its Artemis space program. A large component of Artemis is the launch vehicle that will transport astronauts and cargo to the Moon. That’s where issues may be developing, and not in ways you might suspect.

The Space Telescope Science Institute has partnered with NASA to undertake what will be Hubble’s most extensive observation program to date. The program will entail the Hubble Space Telescope, making Ultraviolet light observations of nearby young and mature stars.

Over the next decade, NASA plans to explore the moon and hopefully establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. However, this time around, NASA wants partners to strap camera equipment to their space-faring vehicles to “visually bring the public along for the ride in new ways.”

NASA’s Orion spacecraft will soon complete years of development and be used on the first Artemis mission around the Moon. Orion will lift off with NASA’s Space Launch System rocket as soon as next year for an uncrewed lunar flyby mission that certifies SLS and Orion for future astronaut flights to the lunar surface. The space agency has shared a new close-up video look at the first Orion spacecraft as the production process accelerates in time for NASA’s Artemis I mission set for later next year.

Newcomer to the satellite broadband network AST & Science has gotten looks from NASA for possibly being a troublesome constellation. AST is planning on placing about 240 satellites in the range of 690-740 km orbits. The goal for AST is to provide worldwide 4G/5G coverage.

Politico has published a new piece on what to expect for NASA from a Biden administration. The former vice president is expected to maintain a number of Trump directives including Space Force and the Artemis program to return astronauts to the Moon. The administration change would likely mean a NASA administrator change as well, however, with Biden said to be planning to appoint the first female NASA administrator.

How is this for a tantalizing teaser? NASA plans to announce a new discovery about Earth’s Moon on Monday, October 26. No details on what the announcement will include beyond ‘new science details,’ but the discovery is credited to NASA’s custom 747 named SOFIA.

Remember the historic SpaceX rocket launch that sent NASA astronauts to the International Space Station earlier this summer? After the successful demonstration mission, SpaceX is almost ready to start sending astronauts to space regularly through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Today, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced the next date when SpaceX will send a crew to the ISS. NASA is targeting no earlier than October 23, 2020, for the upcoming SpaceX Crew-1 mission.

It turns out that Titan, one of Saturn’s many moons, is a relatively optimal place to fly a drone. This is due to the fact that Titan’s atmosphere is four times denser than the Earth’s. So when NASA chose Titan as the next location to “search for the building blocks of life,” they decided to take advantage of that by using a drone instead of a typical rover.

NASA plans to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, and the Artemis mission to do that will include a commercially developed lunar human landing system. In April, the agency awarded initial funding to three human landing system proposals that will compete to be selected for the mission.

SpaceX, Dynetics, and The National Team (Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper) were each awarded initial funding. Today, The National Team delivered on a major milestone in the process.

An engineering mockup of the Blue Origin-led human landing system has been delivered to the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

In a surprise decision made in May, NASA abruptly replaced its associate administrator in charge of human spaceflight eight days before flying astronauts with a commercial partner for the first time in history. While NASA didn’t cite a specific reason for Doug Loverro’s resignation, the outgoing human spaceflight lead suggested a single mistake was made:

The risks we take, whether technical, political, or persona, all have potential consequences if we judge them incorrectly. I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission. Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear consequences. 

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that federal prosecutors are investigating the incident:

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft left Earth on August 12, 2005, on a mission to study the atmosphere of Mars, and it showed us some incredible pictures of the Red Planet. To celebrate 15 years since the launch of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA today shared stunning photos of Mars viewed from above.

NASA’s Perseverance lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on July 30. The new Mars rover traveled atop a United Launch Alliance-operated Atlas V rocket. The Countdown to Mars is just beginning, however. The rover’s months-long journey to Mars will continue through February 2021, then the next decade of Martian science and astrobiological discovery can commence. In this Dispatches from NASA installment, Space Explored captures the week that the Mars 2020 mission took flight in photos, video, and more.

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico was still undergoing repairs from damage by Hurricane Maria three years ago when an auxiliary cable broke and took the telescope offline this week.

The observatory is managed by the University of Central Florida in partnership with Universidad Ana G. Méndez and Yang Enterprises Inc. NASA also relies on the telescope to support the Planetary Radar Project.

The broken cable slashed through the 1,000-foot-wide reflector dish this week, creating 100 feet of damage throughout the telescope.

NASA will soon return astronauts to the Moon using an all-new vehicle called Space Launch System. Using a rocket that has never flown before requires lots of testing, as you can imagine, and many of those tests are quite dramatic — even if NASA is just testing some new soap.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is more than just America’s space agency that runs the U.S. space program. NASA is a global symbol for space exploration, aeronautical and space research, and the universal effort to advance humankind.

Whether it’s the “meatball” insignia or the “worm” logotype, NASA symbolism including rocketry is a celebration of all things space for fans of all ages and expertise.

You don’t have to track down a gift shop in a NASA space center to find the best space swag to celebrate your inner astronaut. Affordable fashion chains regularly put together stellar collections of the coolest NASA merchandise, including these highlights:

Law breaking boats weren’t the only surprises SpaceX experienced during an otherwise smooth NASA astronaut splashdown over the weekend. An issue involving a custom SpaceX app on the iPad also made a cameo appearance during the crewed return trip from the International Space Station to Earth.