International Affairs
Biweekly Washington D.C. Updates for the Week Ending on September 5, 2025
Written by: Molly Prochaska
United States Space Policy Updates
- The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation (CST) held a full committee hearing titled ‘There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise: Why Congress and NASA Must Thwart China in the Space Race.’ (Senate CST, September 3). Read Space Foundation’s summary of the hearing here.
- NASA selected Amit Kshatriya as the new Associate Administrator. Kshatriya has worked in the agency for 20 years, most recently as deputy of the Moon to Mars Program. (NASA, September 3)
- President Donald Trump announced that U.S. Space Command is moving from Colorado to Alabama. (Associated Press, September 2)
- The U.S. Space Force’s chief data officer Chandra Donelson identified the adoption of AI tools as a top priority for the service. (SpaceNews, September 1)
- The Maine Space Corporation is in talks with The Spaceport Company to use ocean-based launch platforms to support the state’s emerging space industry. (Portland Press Herald, August 31)
- The inaugural class of Space Force Guardians graduated from the Officer Training Course at Peterson Space Force Base. (U.S. Space Force, August 28)
- The Pentagon’s DOGE team is preparing to examine 400,000 government contracts and grants in an effort to reduce waste and spending. (Bloomberg, August 27)
- Doug Beck, head of DoD’s commercially focused Defense Innovation Unit, announced his resignation. (Breaking Defense, August 25)
International Space Policy Updates
- Canadian company Canadensys Aerospace revealed prototypes for the country’s first lunar rover, scheduled to launch to the Moon in 2029. (BBC, August 31)
- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will collaborate on the Chandrayaan-5 mission to explore the lunar south pole in 2028. (India TV, August 29)
- China’s Guangdong province released a space plan through 2028, seeking to create a commercial aerospace hub supporting launch capabilities and satellite development. (SpaceNews, August 28)
- Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Mongolian Parliament met to strengthen cooperation over energy, minerals, and space exploration. (Mongolian National News Agency, August 26)
- Satellite manufacturer ICEYE secured nearly $10 million from the Polish National Development Bank to further Earth-observation technology. (European Spaceflight, August 25)
- ISRO announced plans for the next two decades in space, including completion of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2035 and a Moon sample return mission by 2040. (Hindustan Times, August 23)
Space Industry Updates
- Amazon’s Project Kuiper has won a contract to deliver in-flight Wi-Fi for JetBlue Airways, its first airline customer. (Amazon, September 4)
- The U.S. Space Force announced that nearly 150 companies are competing to provide space segment vehicles and the Earth-observation payloads to perform space domain awareness in geostationary orbit. (Defense One, Sept. 2)
- Sarah Walter has been appointed the Chief Operating Officer of True Anomaly. (True Anomaly, September 2)
- Rocket Lab has officially opened its Launch Complex 3, a dedicated test, launch, and landing facility for its reusable rocket Neutron. (Rocket Lab, August 28)
- Avio and Isar Aerospace have been selected by the European Space Agency and the European Commission to launch missions as part of the Flight Ticket Initiative. (European Space Agency, August 27)
- Starlab has appointed Marshall Smith as its CEO. (Starlab, August 22)
Reading Corner
NASA | NASA Seeks Volunteers to Track Artemis II Mission
The Artemis II test flight, targeted for no later than April 2026, will see NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day mission around the moon. This mission will be primarily tracked using NASA’s Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, however, to engage with the public and better understand industry’s capabilities, NASA is seeking volunteers to passively track the Orion spacecraft during its mission.
Previously, during the Artemis I mission, ten out of eighteen selected volunteers were able to successfully track the uncrewed Orion spacecraft during its mission around the moon. These volunteers came from various backgrounds, including academic institutions, commercial companies, nonprofit organizations, and private citizens. The data collected from both missions will be used to inform NASA’s transition to a commercial-first approach, as it identifies nongovernmental tracking capabilities.