Plus: Nearing the end of Artemis 2
Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended the White House plan to cut the agency's budget, Artemis 2 nears the end of its mission, China prepares a launch to the lunar south pole and more.
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OUR TOP STORY
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By Jeff Foust NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman defended a fiscal year 2027 budget proposal that would cut the agency's budget by nearly 25%.
In his first public comments about the budget proposal released April 3, Isaacman said on two television news programs April 5 that the agency had sufficient funding in the proposal to carry out its top exploration priorities despite steep cuts in science, space operations and space technology.
"I certainly support President Trump and his 2027 budget request," he said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" program.
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CIVIL
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Artemis 2 will wrap up a mission lasting roughly nine days with a tightly choreographed sequence of events in the mission's final hour. It starts with the separation of the Orion crew module from its service module at 7:33 p.m. Eastern April 10.
China's multi-element Chang'e-7 lunar spacecraft has arrived at Wenchang spaceport for launch preparations ahead of a planned liftoff in the second half of 2026. The mission consists of an orbiter, lander, rover and a unique hopping probe to seek out evidence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar south pole.
A high-level fiscal year 2027 budget proposal released by the Commerce Department April 3 included $11 million for the Office of Space Commerce. It doesn't specify how funding should be allocated, but matches the 2026 proposal which did not include funding for the office's work on the Traffic Coordination System for Space, or TraCSS.
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MILITARY
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The Trump administration's fiscal year 2027 budget proposal calls for a sharp expansion of U.S. military spending, including a particularly large increase for the U.S. Space Force as the Pentagon shifts resources toward on-orbit capabilities for missile defense.
The U.S. Space Force selected 14 companies to compete for contracts under a new $1.8 billion procurement of satellites and supporting technologies to monitor activity in geosynchronous orbit. The program, known as Andromeda, is structured as a 10-year contracting vehicle managed by Space Systems Command.
The U.S. Space Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $105 million contract to support ground control operations for the next generation of GPS satellites, as the Pentagon moves to wind down a long-delayed replacement program led by RTX. |
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COMMERCIAL
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PLD Space signed a 30 million euro ($35 million) venture debt loan with the European Investment Bank on April 7, a move to support the final development stage of MIURA 5, PLD's lightweight rocket.
The Earth observation firm Vantor is planning its first major overhaul of its space architecture in nearly a decade, aiming to combine its high-resolution imagery with the rapid revisit rates offered by small satellite constellations.
Hungary is moving to build its first national communications satellite and broaden defense ties with U.S. industry, starting with an agreement with Northrop Grumman to build a geostationary communications satellite under a program known as HUSAT. |
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SPONSORED CONTENT
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Latest Press Releases
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