Main Engine Cut OffTed Cruz called a hearing on NASA’s space exploration policy in the next president’s administration. The president of France’s CNES discussed some policy statements, and I went on a rant about his thoughts on Ariane 6 and its competition.
France says they’re interested in backing ISS until 2024. And they continue to hope reusability doesn’t work out so that Ariane 6 can be competitive.
Orbital ATK [shared some more details](http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/27/details-of-orbital-atks-proposed-heavy-launcher-revealed) about their next-generation launch vehicle, SpaceX is working out their [certification process](http://spacenews.com/spacex-to-brief-underwriters-on-the-road-to-falcon-9-reusability/) for [reflown stages](http://www.spacenewsmag.com/feature/first-stage-the-air-force-looks-at-reusability/), and how these events affect the industry and other competitors in the near future.
SpaceX [landed another Falcon 9 first stage](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/05/falcon-9-jcsat-14-launch/) on their drone ship—this time on a GTO launch, which is a major milestone on their way to full reusability and [Falcon Heavy flights](http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/03/spacex-undecided-on-payload-for-first-falcon-heavy-flight/). Orbital ATK’s Antares launch vehicle is set for [an early July return to flight](http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/09/key-return-to-flight-milestone-looms-for-antares-rocket/), and they’re in the planning stages of [a new heavy-launch vehicle](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/orbital-atk-eye-vab-mlp-potential-eelv-rocket/).
SpaceX officially announced their [first Red Dragon mission to Mars](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/spacex-debut-red-dragon-2018-mars-mission/), which will pave the way for future missions. They also posted [new performance metrics](http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities) for Falcon 9 and Heavy, which position the launch vehicles very differently in the market. And a brief discussion of the [potential political fallout](http://spacenews.com/the-rd-180-amendment-was-one-of-two-launch-related-provisions-that-made-it-into-the-national-defense-authorization-act-of-2017-by-the-time-the-committee-voted-60-to-2-to-send-the-bill-to-the-full/) over the [OA-6 launch anomaly](https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/04/oa-6-atlas-v-booster-mrcv-anomoly/).