Photos: Delta 4-Heavy with Orion on eve of launch

Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now’s editor, asked NASA’s acting administrator about the space agency’s commercial crew and Artemis programs during a one-on-one virtual interview Tuesday, April 20.

The Trump administration is proposing $19.1 billion for NASA in its fiscal 2018 budget blueprint, a 0.8 percent decrease from 2017 funding levels, focusing on deep space exploration, both human and robotic, and increased public-private partnerships to lower costs and encourage private sector innovation.

Despite protests from Texas lawmakers, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will manage the agency’s plans to build a lunar landing system that will carry the next man and the first woman to the surface of the moon in 2024, agency Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Friday.