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Axiom
While Hungary previously announced plans for sending astronauts to the ISS via Axiom, at the ESA ministerial they announced that they plan to spend $100 million to send a single astronaut to the ISS in two years.
General Space News
This week's news is significantly abbreviated due to the Thanksgiving holiday last week. With the last month of the year just around the corner and the 118th Congress starting on January 3rd, expect the news to heat up quite a bit over the next four weeks.
In a success for commercial space and CubeSats in general, the CAPSTONE lunar CubeSat mission is now operational after refining its orbit.
European Space Agency Ministerial Meeting
European Space Agency (ESA) member states have agreed to commit 16.9 billion euros ($17.5 billion) to agency programs over the next three years. The figure is short of the roughly 18.5 billion euros ESA sought going into the meeting, but a significant increase over 2019.
ESA also announced that it had elected a new class of 5 "career astronauts, 1 "parastronaut" who will be part of a feasibility study to see if people with physical disabilities can fly to space, and 11 "reserve" astronauts who may be available for future astronaut activities.
France, Germany, and Italy also announced an agreement Tuesday on launch vehicle development.
Possibly as a result of knowing it wouldn’t receive full funding and that European launch systems were becoming more uncompetitive, ESA used the meeting to describe a more sustainable path for space exploration it would be implementing, starting with growing commercial partnerships in lunar exploration.
China
Not to be outdone by Europe, China provided new details about its long-term human and robotic lunar exploration plans. China tied its newly completed Tiangong space station to testing key technologies required for space-based solar power.
Other Space News
NASA's Orion spacecraft went into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon Friday.
The U.S. Space Force is planning a new contract for rideshare services.
Astronomers have detected active chemistry in an exoplanet for the first time.
The space station crew got next-day delivery of cargo over the weekend.
An Indian rocket launched an Earth observation satellite and eight nanosatellites.