View Artemis Rewritten: NASA’s New Moon Plan, Its Risks, and Whether the U.S. Can Still Beat China By Shreya Chandra PublishedApril 20, 2026 In early 2026, NASA made a consequential change to the Artemis program: Artemis III was no longer planned as a crewed lunar landing mission. Instead, Artemis III had been changed to a low Earth Orbit (LEO) demonstration flight that would test integrated operations between the Orion spacecraft and one or both commercial lunar landers being…
View What Will International Partnerships Look Like Post-International Space Station? By Annalise Johnson PublishedOctober 6, 2025 “Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a…
View Space In Focus By Kari A. Bingen, Audrey M. Schaffer PublishedOctober 31, 2024 We are at a consequential moment in space. Space capabilities underpin our daily lives, our national security, our economy, and our ability to explore deep into the cosmos. Yet challenges to the domain and the international order are acute, and U.S. leadership in space is under strain. Actions and decisions now will determine whether space…
View From Earth to Uchū: The Evolution of Japan’s Space Security Policy and a Blueprint for Strengthening the U.S.-Japan Space Security Partnership By Kari A. Bingen, Makena Young PublishedAugust 23, 2024 As Japan reckons with an increasingly tense security dynamic driven by growing Chinese and North Korean military activity and defense budgets, space capabilities are becoming integral to Japan’s national security. The U.S.-Japan security alliance continues to be at the core of both countries’ approaches to security and stability in the Indo-Pacific, with both seeking to…
View Why Hasn’t Starliner Returned? By Clayton Swope PublishedAugust 19, 2024 On June 5, 2024, an Atlas V rocket launched Boeing’s Starliner on its first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Though it successfully docked with the station, Starliner exhibited anomalies related to its propulsion systems, raising concerns about whether the spacecraft could safely return astronauts to Earth. At the time of writing, NASA…
View U.S. Civil Space Primer By Madeleine Chang PublishedMay 6, 2024 The civil space ecosystem refers to departments, agencies, and organizations of the federal government that have operational, regulatory, policy, or other responsibilities over the space activities of the United States, including private sector space activities, which are non-military in nature. Civil space has its roots in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of…
View Mission Authorization: Decoding the Space Policy Dilemma By Clayton Swope PublishedJanuary 11, 2024 On November 15, 2023, the White House’s National Space Council released a legislative proposal that would create a licensing process for private sector novel space activities, called mission authorization, consistent with U.S. obligations under the Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967. Meanwhile, Congress and a government-chartered space advisory group have offered their own proposals. While all parties acknowledge…
View The Private Sector’s Assessment of U.S. Space Policy and Law By Alyssa Goessler PublishedJuly 25, 2022 U.S. commercial space regulation is quickly becoming outdated and stress on the government system and on U.S. companies is rising. This paper provides insight from representatives of U.S. space companies on the U.S. policy and regulatory system.
View Save the Last Dance for the International Space Station By Zhanna Malekos Smith PublishedJune 2, 2022 Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, space ties between Russia and the United States have shown signs of unraveling.
View Fly Me to the Moon: Worldwide Cislunar and Lunar Missions By Kaitlyn Johnson PublishedFebruary 15, 2022 Fly Me to the Moon examines planned cislunar and lunar missions over the next decade from countries around the world. This compilation showcases the growth of satellites, rovers, and experiments intended to extend humanity’s reach more firmly into cislunar space and on the Moon.
