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S. 1437119th CongressScience, Technology, Communications
ASCEND Act
Sponsored by Sen. John W. Hickenlooper (D-CO) · 1 active : 1 Republican
Latest action: Held at the desk.
Where it standsBefore the Senate9 senators score as swing votes
Passed Senate
- Senate: passedDec 9, 2025
- House: next
- President: not yet
Summary
, via Congress.govAccessing Satellite Capabilities to Enable New Discoveries Act or the ASCEND Act
This bill provides statutory authority for the Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Through the CSDA program, NASA acquires remote sensing data and imagery from commercial satellites to support its Earth science research. (
Remote sensing
generally refers to the collection of data by instruments in Earth’s orbit, such as satellites, that can be processed into imagery of Earth’s surface.)
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Under the bill, NASA may establish or modify end-use agreements to allow for broad use of data and imagery acquired under the program, including by individuals outside of NASA (e.g., other federal agencies). The terms of any data or imagery acquisition may not prevent the publication of such data or imagery for scientific purposes or the publication of information derived from it. To the extent practicable, NASA must acquire such data and imagery from U.S. vendors.
Committees and subjects
Committees
- Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation · SenateReported by · Markup by · Referred to
Subjects
- Congressional oversight
- Earth sciences
- Photography and imaging
- Space flight and exploration
- Spacecraft and satellites
How the Senate breaks down
- 9Swing 70–100
- 60Middle 30–70
- 31Entrenched 0–30
Members fall into . All 100 senators have enough data to score.
Key players in the Senate
Ranked by swing score, 0–100 · swing-v2, directional: only movement toward the other party counts, so members who sit further from the center than their party no longer score as swing votes.
Bars show each input from 0 to 100: ideology gap, scorecard gap, . is the seat’s partisan lean, and shows how much of the input data a score has.
Similar past votes, Senate
Earlier behind swing-v3’s inputLoading similar votes
Cosponsors
1 activeShow all 1 cosponsors
- John Cornyn (R-TX)
How the swing score works
Ideology gapHow far a member’s DW-NOMINATE voting score sits from their party’s median in the same chamber.
Scorecard gapHow far their Heritage Action and LCV ratings stray from their party’s average, using the groups’ votes on similar bills where available.
Cross-pressureHow strongly their district or state leans toward the other party, from our own computed partisan lean.
Similar votesHow often they voted against their own party on earlier roll calls about this bill or similar ones.
Committee bonusMembers of the committees handling the bill decide whether it moves, so they get a boost.
Cosponsor checkThe sponsor and active cosponsors have already committed, so they drop toward entrenched.
