05/16/2025 | Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, we have news that the National Space Council will likely return, Troy Meink is confirmed as Air Force Secretary, Norway signs the Artemis Accords and more. | Our Top Story | | |
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| | By Jeff Foust, May 10, 2025 |  | President Donald Trump, flanked by astronauts, members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence, signs an executive order June 30, 2017, re-establishing the National Space Council. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignan
| In a reversal, the White House plans to retain the National Space Council, a move that industry officials say could serve as an advocate for space amid pressures to cut budgets.
The White House is expected in the coming weeks to formally announce the National Space Council will continue after speculation that it would not be retained by the new Trump administration. Politico first reported on the move.
A source familiar with the discussions about the council, but not authorized to speak on the record, said that President Trump agreed at a May 5 meeting to stand up the council. That meeting did not give a timeline for publicly announcing the council or hiring an executive secretary who would handle day-to-day operations, although others have said the process for selecting an executive secretary has been ongoing for several weeks. Read More |  | Other News From the Week | MILITARY | Space Force officials say it's too early to pin down Golden Dome costs
Senior leaders of the U.S. Space Force said President Trump's ambitious missile defense initiative known as Golden Dome is still in its initial planning phase, with next steps to be directed by the White House. They also warned that early cost estimates may drastically underestimate the final price tag due to the program's unprecedented complexity. Read More
Senate confirms Troy Meink as Air Force secretary with bipartisan support
The Senate confirmed Troy Meink, who most recently served as deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, as the 27th secretary of the Air Force on May 13 in a 74-25 vote, completing President Donald Trump's slate of civilian military branch leaders in his second term. Read More
Senate forms 'Golden Dome Caucus' to champion missile defense shield
Sen. Tim Sheehy (R., Mont.) announced a new "Golden Dome Caucus" focused on developing what could become one of the nation's most expensive defense initiatives in history — a comprehensive missile shield designed to protect the American homeland from an increasingly complex array of aerial threats. Read More | | | Loving SpaceNews This Week? Check out SpaceNext: AI, where we look at how artificial intelligence is becoming integral to the space industry, and how companies and agencies are using it for their missions. | | | COMMERCIAL | Eutelsat's DoD setback adds to GEO headwinds as LEO growth builds
The sudden loss of a large U.S. Department of Defense contract has added to Eutelsat's geostationary challenges as the French operator shifts greater focus to its low Earth orbit (LEO) OneWeb constellation. Read More
Foreign SpaceX launch customers seek relief from US tariffs
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a 10% tariff on most imports entering the United States April 2, calculated based on the declared value of the goods. Some countries face even higher tariffs or additional trade restrictions. The tariffs pose an additional hurdle for startups that lack the financial resources to absorb unexpected costs, compounding the uncertainty newcomers already face as they try to gain a foothold in the space industry. Read More | | | CIVIL | Rocket Lab to launch NASA astrophysics smallsat mission NASA announced May 14 it awarded a task order to Rocket Lab for the launch of the Aspera mission, which will study galaxies at ultraviolet wavelengths, on an Electron rocket. The launch is scheduled for no earlier than the first quarter of 2026 from the company's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand. Read More
House hearing on asteroid threats also takes up budget threats The focus of the May 15 hearing by the House Science Committee's space subcommittee was on NASA's efforts to discover and track potentially hazardous asteroids, as well as measures to prevent any possible impacts, collectively known as planetary defense. But the hearing about how NASA is dealing with the threat posed by asteroid impacts turned into a discussion about a very different threat: the impact of proposed NASA budget cuts. Read More | | | POLICY & POLITICS | Aschbacher calls on Europe to increase space spending
Testifying before a European Parliament committee May 13, European Space Agency head Josef Aschbacher said it was a "miracle" that Europe has achieved leadership roles in some space fields, like Earth observation and navigation, given that its spending on space lags far behind the United States and China. Read More
Norway signs Artemis Accords
Cecilie Myrseth, Norway's minister for trade and industry, signed the Accords during an event at the headquarters of the Norwegian Space Agency in Oslo, attended by the head of the agency as well as the chargé d'affaires of the U.S. embassy there. Read More | | |
|  | OPINION |
| By Zachary "Gene" Botkin, May 14, 2025 |  | Space food on display at the National Museum of China. Credit: Shujianyang via Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0 | A spacefaring people needs more than rockets and stations. No civilization has ever been built on technical capability alone. It needs people who choose to remain and pursue life beyond Earth's orbit. It is culture — rooted in beauty, repetition and meaning — that turns infrastructure into home. Without it, space will remain a sterile domain — often visited but never inhabited.
Private firms now lead the charge into orbit, the moon, and beyond. Their visions are ambitious: tourism, manufacturing — even settlement. But such ambitions require demand that persists beyond novelty. And demand will not endure unless space becomes desirable not only for its wonder but for its way of life. If the space economy is to grow, then space must become livable. Not in the sense of breathable air and safe shelter, but in the deeper sense of belonging.
Culture creates that. Read More
I'm an exoplanet scientist. Here's what we lose if we don't launch Roman.
By Mary Anne Limbach
Space debris crisis: the national security threat we're ignoring
By Ken Eppens
Countering China's space stalkers: helping turn Competitive Endurance from theory into practice
By Brian G. Chow
Accelerating the path for commercial space integration (and implementation) remains a DoD and national security priority
By Rebecca M. Cowen-Hirsch
Accelerating investment in the final frontier: leveraging administrative approvals to bolster commercial space development
By Mike Gold
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| | Sponsored Post |  | By ST Engineering iDirect
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