Elon Musk pulls back on threat to withdraw Dragon spacecraft
Washington, Jun 6 (AP): As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk argued on social media on Thursday, the world's richest man threatened to decommission a space capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.
A few hours later, Musk said he wouldn't follow through on the threat.
After Trump threatened to cut government contracts given to Musk's SpaceX rocket company and his Starlink internet satellite services, Musk responded via X that SpaceX "will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”
It was unclear how serious Musk's threat was, but several hours later — in a reply to another X user — he said he wouldn't do it.
The capsule, developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the space station running. NASA also relies heavily on SpaceX for other programmes including launching science missions and, later this decade, returning astronauts to the surface of the moon.
The Dragon capsule
SpaceX is the only US company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.
Boeing's Starliner capsule has flown astronauts only once; last year's test flight went so badly that the two NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride back to Earth via SpaceX in March, more than nine months after launching last June.
Starliner remains grounded as NASA decides whether to go with another test flight with cargo, rather than a crew.
SpaceX also uses a Dragon capsule for its own privately run missions. The next one of those is due to fly next week on a trip chartered by Axiom Space, a Houston company.
Cargo versions of the Dragon capsule are also used to ferry food and other supplies to the orbiting lab.
NASA's other option: Russia
Russia's Soyuz capsules are the only other means of getting crews to the space station right now.
The Soyuz capsules hold three people at a time. For now, each Soyuz launch carries two Russians and one NASA astronaut, and each SpaceX launch has one Russian on board under a barter system. That way, in an emergency requiring a capsule to return, there is always someone from the US and Russian on board.
With its first crew launch for NASA in 2020 — the first orbital flight of a crew by a private company — SpaceX enabled NASA to reduce its reliance on Russia for crew transport. The Russian flights had been costing the US tens of millions of dollars per seat, for years.
NASA has also used Russian spacecraft for cargo, along with US contractor Northrup Grumman.
SpaceX's other government launches
The company has used its rockets to launch several science missions for NASA as well as military equipment.
Last year, SpaceX also won a NASA contract to help bring the space station out of orbit when it is no longer usable.
SpaceX's Starship mega rocket is what NASA has picked to get astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon, at least for the first two landing missions. Starship made its ninth test flight last week from Texas, but tumbled out of control and broke apart.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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