What’s Happening in Space Policy August 30-September 5, 2026

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of August 30-September 5, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House is in session this week. The Senate is in recess except for pro forma sessions until September 14 (after the Labor Day recess).

During the Week

This week’s BIG EVENT happened this morning with the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.  Liftoff at 7:26 am ET atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy was flawless and Roman is now on its way to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, L2, one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth in the direction away from the Sun. Roman is in a 90-day commissioning period as it travels to L2. NASA expects to release the first images early next year.

It’s a busy week.  Here in D.C., the House returns from their 5-week recess tomorrow (Monday) and will be here through Thursday before leaving again for the Labor Day recess. They’ll be back on September 14 when the Senate also returns. The Senate stayed for two weeks after the House departed, so each chamber had a 5-week break.

Before leaving, the House narrowly passed a Continuing Resolution (CR) on largely partisan lines, 220-205, to keep the government open through December 4 (H.R. 9770).  On August 8, the Senate passed a substantially different CR (using H.R. 6500 as the legislative vehicle) on a bipartisan basis, 90-6, that would keep the government operating until December 11. The House plans to take up H.R. 6500 this week on the suspension calendar, an expedited procedure that avoids the Rules Committee, but requires a two-thirds vote to pass. If House Speaker Mike Johnson succeeds in getting it passed, the only remaining step will be for President Trump to sign it to avoid a shutdown on September 30. Among its many provisions, the Senate bill would prevent the White House from implementing a proposed rule for the duration of the CR on how federal grants are awarded that could affect science and space grants among many others.

On Thursday, there’s a very important ceremony at Joint Base Andrews just outside D.C. where Gen. B. Chance Saltzman will formally hand over the role of Chief of Space Operations (CSO) of the U.S. Space Force to Gen. Douglas Schiess.

This is just the second USSF “Change of Responsibility” event. Gen. Jay Raymond chose Change of Responsibility instead of Change of Command when he handed the reins to Saltzman in 2022.

Saltzman already had his retirement ceremony on August 13, but according to the emcee at that event his formal retirement date is October 31. In any case, Schiess takes over as CSO on Thursday. He’s currently USSF Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Operations. The event will be livestreamed.

NASA will have a fourth spacewalk on Tuesday in what was to have been a series of three. One took longer than planned, so they added another. NASA’s Jessica Meir and ESA’s Sophie Adenot will replace a spacecraft navigational aid, prepare the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer’s radiator for an upgrade, and install jumper cables to boost data-relay systems during their 6.5 hour extravehicular activity (EVA). Meir and NASA’s Anil Menon did the first in this series on August 6 to install hardware for the next Roll-out Solar Array. Menon and Adenot did the second and third spacewalks to replace a space-to-ground antenna. That took longer than expected because of stubborn cables and bolts that didn’t want to release, hence this additional EVA. This will be Meir’s 7th overall and Adenot’s third, and the sixth all-female spacewalk. Meir and Christina Koch were the first two women to perform spacewalks together and they did three (October 2019 and two in January 2020). Two more were conducted by Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara (November 2023), and by Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers (May 2025).

Meir, Adenot, NASA’s Jack Hathaway and Roscosmos’s Andrey Fedyaev are the members of Crew-12 and will be getting a little extra time on the ISS. Launch of their replacements on Crew-13 will be delayed because an oxidizer leak was detected on the propulsion system of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. A new launch date is TBD.

Lots of other great events this week. To highlight just two: on Monday NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel reports out on its latest meetings with the agency (via telephone only), and on Wednesday the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy will hold a Space Policy Forum at the National Press Club in D.C.  Aerospace’s Brian Weeden kicks off the day with a panel featuring former NASA Deputy Administrator and former astronaut Pam Melroy and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Aaron Miles. They’ll discuss the “integration of space within the broader national science, technology, and innovation portfolio.” Another panel will debate “Whether the U.S. Should Seek to Avoid or Embrace Space War.” Great topics, great participants! No livestream unfortunately.

It’s in-person only, but we’ll also mention that Turkey (Türkiye) will become the 71st signatory to the Artemis Accords tomorrow at NASA HQ. Türkiye is hosting the annual International Astronautical Congress this year in Antalya. Expect an update to the official Artemis Accords chart, which today has 70 flags.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below. Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and add to our Calendar or changes to these.

Sunday, August 30

• Launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, KSC, 7:26 am ET
  • Post-launch press conference 9:30 am ET

Monday, August 31

• ESA Briefing on the Next Milestone for BepiColombo’s Mission to Mercury, online, 8:00-9:00 am ET (14:00-15:00 CEST)
• Assessment of Technical  & Scientific Capability at NASA Goddard (Natl Acad), 1:00-3:00 pm ET (online?)
• NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, 2:00-3:30 pm ET (telephone)
• Turkey (Türkiye) Signs Artemis Accords, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (in-person only), 2:30 pm ET

Tuesday, September 1

• NASA/ESA Spacewalk at ISS (Adenot/Meir), 8:30 am ET (NASA coverage begins 7:00 am ET)

Tuesday-Wednesday, September 1-2

• Space Weather Roundtable (Natl Acad), Keck Center, Washington, DC (some sessions are closed)

Tuesday-Thursday, September 1-3

• Global Space Traffic Management Workshop 2026, Edinburgh, Scotland

Wednesday, September 2

• Space Policy Forum: Bringing Space to the National Debate (Aerospace Corp), National Press Club, 529 14th  St., NW, Washington, DC, 9:00 am-4:00 pm ET

Thursday, September 3

• U.S. Space Force Change of Responsibility Ceremony, Joint Base Andrews, MD, 11:00 am ET (livestreamed)

Friday, September 4

• ESA Pre-Launch  Briefings on FLEX and Copernicus Sentinel-3C, online, 8:00 am ET in English (14:00 CEST)
• Schriever Spacepower Series with Brig. Gen. Todd Benson (Mitchell Inst), virtual, 9:30-10:30 am ET