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VP Kamala Harris to attend Artemis 1 moon launch (exclusive)
Vice President Kamala Harris will be on site for the scheduled Artemis 1 liftoff to the moon Aug. 29 and will deliver a speech at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Science & Tech
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the VIP guests at NASA's upcoming moon launch.
Harris will be on site to watch the Artemis 1 moon mission lift off Monday (Aug. 29) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, Space.com learned in an exclusive update from the Vice President's office.
While at KSC, Harris, who also chairs the National Space Council, will deliver a speech highlighting the historic importance of NASA's Artemis program, which plans to land the first woman and the first person of color on the moon, a White House official said in an emailed update on Thursday (Aug. 24).
Harris' presence at the Artemis 1 launch will come just two weeks before the next National Space Council meeting. The group is set to gather on Sept. 9 in part to hammer out a "new rules framework" for commercial space that Harris announced on Aug. 14. (What those rules are exactly is yet to be disclosed.)
The White House has been very active in the space scene in recent weeks. For example, on July 11, U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled an ultradeep view of galaxies snapped by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, and on Aug. 9 he signed the first NASA authorization bill to pass Congress in five years. The bill includes authorization for NASA to extend its participation in the International Space Station (ISS) program to 2030.
The theme of Harris' Aug. 29 speech at KSC will be the "United States' leadership in space exploration," and it will come at a time when that leadership is being tested on several fronts.
NASA is one of the lead partners in the ISS, alongside Russia. This week, however, also marks the six-month anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which led to the sundering of most of Russia's space partnerships.
NASA has emphasized that its relations with Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, remain nominal when it comes to the ISS. That said, Russia announced last month that it plans to withdraw from the ISS program at some point after 2024 to redirect its resources to an independent Russian space station.
Through the Artemis program, NASA hopes to create a pivot point for numerous spacefaring nations, both new and experienced, to work alongside the agency in a framework meant to create international norms for space exploration. For instance, more than 20 countries have signed the framework-setting Artemis Accords, with some partners like Japan, Canada and European nations receiving astronaut seats on future missions for their contributions.