Here is our list of space policy events for the week of March 7-11, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The Senate is in session this week; the House is in recess.

During the Week

It’s another busy week as three conferences take place at the same time, all in the D.C.-area.   One, AIAA’s DEFENSE 2016, is classified SECRET/U.S. ONLY so that limits participation and is broadly focused, not just about space.  The other two are open to anyone who can afford the registration fee: the American Astronautical Society’s annual Goddard Memorial Symposium in Greenbelt, MD and, around the Beltway, SATELLITE 2016, in National Harbor, MD.  Great sessions at both conferences will make it difficult choose where to be.   Without traffic, the distance between the two is about 25 minutes, so conceivably one could go back and forth, though in reality the “without traffic” hours in the D.C.-area are severely limited.

Up on the Hill, House members are taking the week off from legislative duties to check in with their constituents back home.  The Senate is in session, though, and on Thursday the Senate Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee will hold its hearing on NASA’s FY2017 budget request.  As usual, the Obama Administration decided to request far less funding for programs that are congressional priorities — like the Space Launch System, which is near and dear to subcommittee chairman Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), so one can well imagine how the hearing will go.  Not to mention that the Obama Administration is using the “gimmick” explained in our fact sheet on NASA’s budget request.   The White House and NASA say the request is for $19.025 billion, which is $260 million less than what Congress provided for FY2016, but be sure to read the fine print.   In actuality, the request for appropriations is $18.262 billion, about $1 billion less than FY2016.   The White House and NASA display the request as $19.025 billion by adding in $664 million they expect Congress to transfer to the discretionary portion of the federal budget (that funds NASA and other agencies) from the mandatory portion (that funds Medicare and Social Security, e.g.).  Then they add another $100 million for aeronautics from a $10-dollar-a-barrel tax the White House wants to levy on oil companies for a 21st Century Clean Transportation System initiative.  If you haven’t heard about this already, you can learn more from our fact sheet, but, safe to say, the hearing will be lively. 

If all that doesn’t keep you busy enough, the NASA Advisory Council’s Science committee is meeting at the end of the week, preceded by a meeting of its planetary science subcommittee. 

And all of this will be topped off Friday night with the annual “space prom” — the National Space Club’s Goddard Memorial Dinner — with about 2,000 VIPs from all sectors of the aerospace community dressed to the hilt.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additional events that we learn about as the week progresses and are added to our Events of Interest list.

Monday, March 7

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Committee’s Research Subcommittee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC., 9:00 am – 4:30 pm ET  (WebEx)
• Space Generation Advisory Council’s SGx event (in conjunction with SATELLITE 2016), Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, MD

Monday-Thursday, March 7-10

• SATELLITE 2016, Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, MD

Tuesday, March 8

• WSBR Luncheon Featuring OneWeb’s Greg Wyler (in conjunction with SATELLITE 2016), Gaylord National Convention Center, National Harbor, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• MIT Washington Seminar Series on Tech Frontiers of Space (sixth and last seminar), Maggiano’s Little Italy, Washington, DC

Tuesday-Thursday, March 8-10

• Goddard Memorial Symposium (American Astronautical Society), Greenbelt Marriott, Greenbelt, MD (March 8 is opening reception only; sessions are March 9-10)
• AIAA DEFENSE 2016, JHU/Applied Physic Lab, Laurel, MD (SECRET/U.S. ONLY)

Wednesday, March 9

• Women in Defense 2016 Conference, Crystal Gateway Marriott, Arlington, VA, 7:30 am – 4:30 pm ET
• NASA News Conference with Upcoming ISS Crew, Johnson Space Center, TX, 2:00 pm ET (1:00 pm CT), watch on NASA TV
• SASC Sbcmte Hearing on Military Space Threats and Programs, SVC-217 Capitol, Washington, DC, 2:30 pm ET CLOSED

Wednesday-Thursday, March 9-10

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Planetary Science Subcommittee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (WebEx)

Thursday, March 10

• Senate Approps CJS Subcommittee Hearing on NASA’s FY2017 Budget Request, 192 Dirksen, 10:30 am ET

Thursday-Friday, March 10-11

• NAC Science Committee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (WebEx)

Friday, March 11

• Goddard Memorial Dinner (National Space Club), Hilton Washington, 1919 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 6:30 pm ET

Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) is planning a multipronged approach to getting government space agencies to adopt commercial solutions.  He will introduce a comprehensive bill — the American Space Renaissance Act — later this year, but does not expect it to pass en toto.  Instead, he sees it as a repository of “plug and play” provisions that will be inserted into other pieces of legislation, especially this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Speaking at a Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) breakfast meeting on Friday, Bridenstine laid out his plans “to promote policies that will permanently make America the predominant spacefaring nation.”   A draft of the American Space Renaissance Act will be released at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium in April and Bridenstine is seeking feedback from interested parties. 

He listed a number themes that will be included in the draft legislation:  fostering, encouraging and incentivizing industry to innovate and thrive in the United States; expanding launch options and producing more satellites in the United States; having a robust space travel infrastructure; being the home of world-changing plans like point-to-point suborbital flight, lunar habitats and asteroid mining; and getting the government to purchase services instead of owning satellites.

The bill is intended to serve as a “conversation piece as well as a repository for the best ideas that we can plug and play into different pieces of legislation,” he said.

Bridenstine serves on both the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, where he chairs the Subcommittee on Environment, and the House Armed Services Committee, where he is a member of the subcommittee on Strategic Forces.  That provides him a broader view of space issues than most Members of Congress.   The second-term Congressman said his constituents (in the Tulsa area) have little interest in space programs because they do not recognize the role that space plays in their everyday lives, but he is convinced of its importance.

He is particularly passionate about the nation’s weather satellites.  His goal is for forecasts to become so accurate that there will be zero deaths from tornadoes, a frequent occurrence in Oklahoma.  He has been a strong critic of NOAA’s management of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R series because of their high cost and schedule delays, but more broadly worries that NOAA builds “Battlestar Gallaticas” that are vulnerable to a range of threats — from launch failures, to system failures, to attacks from enemies — and sees commercial weather companies and their constellations of small satellites as part of the solution. 

The FY2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act directed NOAA to initiate a commercial weather data pilot program to purchase, evaluate and calibrate commercial weather data and assess its viability for inclusion in NOAA’s numerical weather models.  The idea originated in the Weather Research and Forecast Innovation Act (H.R. 1561) that passed the House last year, which Bridenstine co-sponsored.  It would authorize $9 million for this effort.  The Senate has not acted on that bill yet, but the weather data pilot program was included in NOAA’s portion of the FY2016 appropriations bill, with $3 million allocated.  A Bridenstine aide said on Friday that a report from NOAA on its implementation of the pilot program was due on February 16, but has not yet been received.  NOAA is requesting $5 million for FY2017.

Bridenstine said he plans to try and include a similar provision for DOD in this year’s NDAA.   DOD is still struggling to shape its weather satellite strategy following the 2010 cancellation of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS).   It has had a few false starts and Bridenstine clearly sees commercial data as part of the solution.

He also will try to include language in the NDAA to begin a transition of responsibility for providing space situational awareness (SSA) data and conjunction analyses (to warn of potential collisions) to commercial entities and foreign governments.   Today, DOD’s Joint Space Operations Center (JPSoC) provides SSA data to everyone, but Bridenstine reiterated Friday what he has said in the past that it is a distraction for JSPoC, which should be focused on its DOD mission of “fighting and winning wars.”   He wants to create a commercialized Conjunction Analysis and Warning Center that fuses unclassified DOD data with data from international partners and commercial operators.  The Center would be subject to oversight by the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). 

Bridenstine insisted that he is a conservative Republican who typically does not favor government regulation, but it is necessary in some cases. Commercial space is one of them because “the lack of appropriate regulation is regulation itself.”  His goal is to find a “sweet spot” to “maximize regulatory certainty and minimize regulatory interference – a de minumus approach.”

As for his Conjunction Analysis and Warning Center that he wants included in the NDAA, he stressed that he is not proposing any new regulatory authority.  “Zero. My objective is to gradually build the capacity of a civilian agency” to do SSA.  Eventually, he thinks a government agency — specifically FAA/AST — should be in charge of Space Traffic Management, but he is not proposing that right now.  He also restated his intent for FAA/AST to be designated as the government agency in charge of implementing a requirement in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that governments authorize and continually supervise the actions of their non-governmental entities, like companies.  FAA/AST regulates commercial launches and reentries, NOAA regulates commercial remote sensing satellites, and the Federal Communications Commission regulates commercial communications satellites, but no agency has been appointed to regulate activities such as asteroid mining or commercial activities on the lunar surface.  He thinks FAA/AST should expand its role to do so.

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of February 29 – March 4, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

It’s another busy week  — on the Hill, off the Hill, and off the planet. 

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is finishing up his last days on the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the “year in space” mission (it’s not quite a year, actually, but about 340 days).  He and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko have been on ISS since March 27, 2015 (Eastern Time) to further studies of human physiological and psychological adaptation to spaceflight in preparation for even longer trips to destinations like Mars.   Theirs is not the longest duration mission — four Russian cosmonauts spent 365 days or more continuously on the Soviet/Russian space station Mir in the 1980s and 1990s — but is the most recent and Kelly is the first American on such a long mission.  (The record for total consecutive
days in space is held by cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov who
spent 438 days aboard the Mir space station in 1994-1995.  Sergei Avdeyev spent 380 days on Mir in 1998-1999.  Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov spent 365 days together on Mir in
1987-1988.  In all cases, other crews came and went during those missions.)

Kelly and Kornienko are scheduled to land in the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft along with cosmonaut Sergei Volkov (who arrived at ISS in September) very late Tuesday night — 11:27 ET.   Kelly will embark on his trip home to Houston very soon thereafter, arriving late Wednesday night (11:45 pm ET) where he will be greeted by Second Lady of the United States Dr. Jill Biden and other White House and NASA dignitaries.   On Friday, he will participate in a press briefing from Johnson Space Center at 2:00 pm ET, preceded at 1:00 by a briefing by two NASA scientists and his identical twin brother, Mark.   The two brothers have been part of a Twins Study during the mission.  NASA TV will cover it all.

It may be hard to top that in terms of news value, but there is much more going on, including quite a few congressional hearings on military and civil space programs.  Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III will appear before the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Wednesday and the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday.  FAA Administrator Michael Huerta will testify to the House Appropriations Transportation-HUD subcommittee on Wednesday, though it is not clear how much focus will be on the $19.8 million request for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.  

Perhaps of most interest to readers of this website is a House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee hearing on Thursday on NASA’s new “Ocean Worlds” program.  Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), who chairs the subcommittee, is an enthusiast for sending a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is thought to have an ocean under its icy crust.  It is not the only solar system body thought to have an ocean and Culberson directed NASA to initiate a program to explore these “ocean worlds” in his report on last year’s appropriations bill.  He has invited Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Cornell’s Jonathan Lunine to testify about the program.   JPL is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) operated by the California Institute of Technology (CalTech), so some people consider it a NASA field center while others point out it is a contractor and not “government” in the same sense as the rest of NASA.   Thus one can say that the hearing has a NASA witness or not as one chooses, but it is interesting to see just this one part of NASA’s program singled out for a hearing, reflecting the chairman’s intense interest.  Culberson says often that he is convinced that evidence of life will be discovered on Europa and hence he believes this is one of NASA’s top priorities.  Elachi is retiring this summer, by the way, after 15 years at the helm of JPL (part of a 45 year career there).  He will move over to CalTech as professor emeritus to continue his research.  His successor has not been announced. 

Meanwhile, there are meetings of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG), several NASA advisory committees, National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committees, the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, an ISU-DC space cafe, an Orbital-ATK investors teleconference, and an announcement by NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden about NASA’s new plans for X-planes.  Whew!  Get out your running shoes.

The many events of interest this week that we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additional events that we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.

Oh, and happy Leap Year!  We certainly need that extra day.

Sunday-Wednesday, February 28-March 2

• Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, Chattanooga, TN

Monday, February 29

• NASA X-Plane Announcement, Ronald E. Reagan National Airport, Arlington, VA, 1:30 pm ET

Tuesday, March 1

• Space Technology Industry, Government, University Roundtable (National Academy of Sciences), National Academy of Sciences building, 2101 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm ET
• Orbital ATK Investors Teleconference, virtual, 9:00 am ET (audio webcast)
• NASA International Space Station Advisory Committee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, 2:00-3:00 pm ET, (audio available remotely, but must contact NASA’s Patrick Finley in advance to get instructions)
• Soyuz TMA-18 M Undocking and Landing with Year-in-Space Crew, undocking 8:05 pm ET, landing 11:27 pm ET (watch on NASA TV)

Tuesday-Wednesday, March 1-2

• NASA Advisory Council (NAC) Heliophysics Subcommittee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC

Wednesday, March 2

• House Appropriations Defense Sbcmt Hearing on FY2017 Air Force Budget, H-140 Capitol, 10:00 am ET
• House Appropriations T-HUD Sbcmt Hearing on FY2017 FAA Budget, 2359 Rayburn, 2:00 pm ET
• ISU-DC Space Cafe Featuring Charles Miller, The Science Club, Washington, DC, 7:00 pm ET
• A Year in Space: Part 1 (PBS/Time), airs on Washington DC-area PBS station WETA, 8:00 pm ET [check local listings for other broadcast times]
• NASA TV Coverage of Scott Kelly’s Return to Houston, Houston, TX, 11:45 pm ET

Wednesday-Thursday, March 2-3

• MEPAG, Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Washington-Silver Spring, Silver Spring, MD (available by Adobe Connect)
• NAC Human Exploration and Operations Cmte, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (available by WebEx)

Wednesday-Friday, March 2-4

• National Academy of Sciences Committee on NASA Science Mission Extensions, Beckman Center, Irvine, CA (some sessions are closed, but the agenda shows open sessions each of the three days)

Thursday, March 3

• SASC Air Force Posture Hearing, G-50 Dirksen, 9:30 am ET
• House Appropriations CJS Sbcmt Hearing on NASA’s Ocean Worlds program, H-309 Capitol, 10:30 am ET
• Senate Appropriations CJS Sbcmt Hearing on Dept of Commerce FY2017 budget, 192 Dirksen, 10:30 am ET

Friday, March 4

• Two NASA Press Briefings on Year in Space Mission, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX (watch on NASA TV)
  • 1:00 pm ET:  Julie Robinson, John Charles, Mark Kelly
  • 2:00 pm ET:  Scott Kelly

 

Editor’s Note:  NASA has countdown clocks on its website for the 1-year mission showing elapsed time and remaining time.   At this moment (February 29, 5:50 pm) it shows that the mission duration for the two men will be 340 days, 7 hours, 44 minutes and 2 seconds, not “just under 342 days” as we calculated yesterday.  The text has been changed accordingly.

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of February 22-26, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.   The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Now that the President has submitted his FY2017 budget request and Congress is back from its week-long break, congressional hearings on the budget and related topics begin in earnest.  

This week, subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and the Defense Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee (HAC-D) will hold hearings on the status of U.S. strategic forces (HASC), the FY2017 DOD budget for science and technology (HASC), and the entire DOD budget request (HAC-D). 

Subcommittees of the House Appropriations Committee will hold hearings on the budgets for the Department of Commerce (which includes NOAA) and Department of Transportation (which includes the FAA and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation).  It is unlikely that space activities will come up at those hearings, but we list them here for completeness.  Specific hearings on NOAA and the FAA are likely to be scheduled in the coming weeks.

As for NASA, although it is not about the FY2017 budget request per se, the House Science, Space, and Technology (SS&T) committee will hold a hearing on the Space Leadership Preservation Act (H.R. 2093).  That bill is sponsored by Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), who chairs the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee that funds NASA.   Similar legislation in the previous two Congresses was sponsored by Frank Wolf, who chaired the CJS subcommittee until he retired.  House SS&T held a hearing on one of those bills (H.R. 823 from the 113th Congress) on February 27, 2013, almost exactly three years ago.   Culberson reintroduced the legislation last April. House SS&T Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and four others (two Republicans, two Democrats) are co-sponsors.  There are some differences among the three versions of the bill, but essentially the goal is for NASA to be run by a Board of Directors similar to the National Science Board that oversees the National Science Foundation and to make the position of NASA Administrator a 10-year appointment, similar to the Director of the FBI.  The sponsors of the legislation assert these steps would make NASA less political.

House SS&T will hold a hearing on the discovery of gravitational waves on Wednesday.   The discovery was made using terrestrial instruments — LIGO — but spacecraft have been launched (Europe’s LISA Pathfinder) or are planned to investigate that phenomenon, so space-based astrophysics may come up.

Off the Hill, on Thursday, two groups are holding events looking at the FY2017 budget request — both at the same time, unfortunately.  The Air Force Association and FiscalTrak will hold a symposium focused on the request for national security space at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA.   In another part of Arlington, called Pentagon City because of its proximity to the Pentagon, Women in Aerospace will hold a broader “senior leaders” discussion with representatives of NOAA, DOD, the Senate Appropriations Committee, and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.  Both of those, again unfortunately, are at the same time as the House SS&T hearing on the Space Leadership Preservation Act and the HAC-D hearing with Secretary of Defense Carter on the DOD budget.  So #needclones is the hashtag of the week, especially for your SpacePolicyOnline.com editor since I will be moderating a panel at the WIA event.  The good news is that congressional committees usually webcast their hearings so those should be available for later viewing.

It’s a busy week.  Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for any others that are announced later and added to our Events of Interest list. 

Monday-Thursday, February 22-25

• Nuclear & Emerging Technologies for Space (American Nuclear Society and USRA), Huntsville, AL

Tuesday, February 23

• WSBR Luncheon Featuring USD/ATL Frank Kendall, University Club, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• House Appropriations CJS Subcommittee Hearing on FY2017 Budget Request for Department of Commerce, H-309 Capitol, 4:30 pm ET

Wednesday, February 24

• House SS&T Hearing on Gravitational Waves, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, Kennedy Space Center, FL, 1:00-2:30 pm ET (audio available)
• HASC Subcommittee Hearing on Defense Science and Technology FY2017 Budget Request, 2212 Rayburn, 2:00 pm ET
• House Appropriations T-HUD Subcommittee Hearing on FY2017 Budget Request for Department of Transportation, 2359 Rayburn, 2:00 pm ET
• HASC Subcommittee Posture Hearing on Strategic Forces, 2118 Rayburn, 3:30 pm ET

Thursday, February 25

• Strategic National Security Space FY17 Budget Forum (Air Force Association and FiscalTrak), Key Bridge Marriott, Arlington, VA, 7:30 am – 2:30 pm ET
• House SS&T Hearing on Space Leadership Preservation Act, 2318 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Hearing on FY2017 DOD Budget Request, 2359 Rayburn, 10:00 am ET
• Senior Leaders Budget Discussion (Women in Aerospace), Ritz Carlton Pentagon City, Arlington, VA, 10:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• NSF-NASA-DOE Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, virtual, 12:00-4:00 pm ET

UPDATE, March 3, 2016:  Sen. Shelby won the primary.

ORIGINAL STORY, February 16, 2016: Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) is facing four Republican opponents in Alabama’s March 1 Senate primary.  The 81-year-old five-term Republican is expected to win, but in this anti-establishment political season, there are no sure bets.

In the space policy community, Shelby is best known for his unwavering support of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), managed by Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, and his clash with Sen. John McCain over the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) use of Russian RD-180 rocket engines for the Atlas V launch vehicle.  ULA builds its rockets in Decatur, AL.  McCain wants to limit the number of RD-180s ULA can obtain, while Shelby wants considerable flexibility.

The McCain-Shelby fireworks erupted publicly in December when Shelby, a powerful member of the Senate Appropriations Committee working with one of the committee’s top Democrats, Dick Durbin (D-IL), undermined McCain’s efforts to limit to nine the additional number of RD-180s that ULA could obtain for national security launches.  The appropriations committee essentially lifted that limit.  McCain pulled no punches in lambasting the two for putting constituent interests ahead of national interests.  ULA is jointly owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.  Boeing is headquartered in Durbin’s state of Illinois.

The antagonism continued last week with McCain and Durbin publishing dueling commentaries in the Wall Street Journal (McCain’s as an op-ed on Monday, Durbin’s as a letter to the editor on Thursday), and McCain (or his designee) live-tweeting rejoinders to Shelby’s conversation with Air Force witnesses about RD-180s at a hearing on Wednesday.  The Air Force agrees with ULA on the need for the flexibility the appropriations act provides.  Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said on Wednesday that 18 are needed; last year the number was 14.   McCain’s FY2016 National Defense Authorization Act allows only nine.

Shelby is among the highest ranking Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that funds NASA.  He is a steadfast supporter of SLS and widely viewed as the architect of the increased budgets SLS has received compared to the President’s request.  For the current fiscal year (FY2016), for example, Congress appropriated $2 billion for SLS, compared with the President’s request of $1.356 billion.

Alabama holds its Republican and Democratic primaries on March 1 along with a number of other states in what is billed as “Super Tuesday.”  While most of the attention will be focused on the presidential races, they are not the only ones of consequence.  

Shelby is facing four Republican primary opponents.  National Journal (NJ) reports that Shelby and the Republican party nationally, which is fighting to retain control of the Senate, are taking the race very seriously despite internal polls that show Shelby leading.  He needs a majority of votes to avoid a runoff and with the anti-establishment tenor of the presidential races, nothing can be taken for granted.   NJ quotes Republican consultant Brad Todd as saying that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz may “motivate a group of not your normal Alabama Republican primary voters” and Shelby and other incumbents need to be prepared for “having an electorate you weren’t counting on.”

Shelby’s opponents are Jonathan McConnell, 33, a Marine veteran; John Martin, 59, a former Army Ranger; Marcus Bowman, 42, a former legislative analyst and research consultant; and Shadrack McGill, 40, a former Alabama state senator. 

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of February 7-12, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

North Korea’s satellite launch last evening (February 6) Eastern Standard Time (today, February 7, local time in North Korea) certainly will be the international space-related story of the week.  The United Nations Security Council will meet in emergency session today to discuss whether additional sanctions should be levied.  The launch violates two U.N. Security Council resolutions —  Resolution 1718 adopted in 2006 and Resolution 1874 adopted in 2009 — designed to discourage North Korea from developing ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile back in D.C., President Obama will submit the final budget request of his Administration to Congress on Tuesday.   The document will be released by the Government Publishing Office (GPO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at 11:00 am EST and should be posted on their websites at that time.   DOD, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and NASA are all holding budget briefings during the day.  NASA is using the entire day to showcase its activities at all of its centers around the country.  Called “State of NASA'” day, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden will deliver a State of NASA speech at 1:30 pm EST that will be carried on NASA TV (it is separate from the NASA budget briefing at 5:00 pm EST with NASA Chief Financial Officer Dave Radzanowski).

The release of the budget kicks off congressional hearings on the President’s request.  From a space policy perspective, first up is the Air Force.  SecAF Deborah Lee James and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III will appear before the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.

The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday as well, but it is not budget related.  Instead, it will discuss “Understanding and Deterring Russia.”  There is no way to know in advance whether any of the government or commercial space arrangements we have with Russia or DOD’s space protection efforts will come up (the witnesses are not from the space community), but it is quite possible.  A growing number of U.S. officials cite Russia as the current biggest threat to the United States and its allies both on Earth and in space.

It is shaping up to be an intense week, so it’s good that on Thursday evening there’s something a little more fun to do (other than watching the next Democratic presidential primary debate).  NASA Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green will speak at an AIAA-Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) event at the British Embassy in Washington on the science fiction and science fact in the movie The Martian.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning are listed below.  Check back throughout the week for additions to our Events of Interest list as we learn about others.

Tuesday, February 9

• Press Conference Re Upcoming Asteroid Day on June 30, ESA ESTEC, The Netherlands, 15:00 Central European Time (9:00 am EST)
• Release of President Obama’s FY2017 Budget Request, GPO/OMB, 11:00 am EST
  • DOD Budget Briefing, the Pentagon, 1:00 pm EST
  • OSTP Budget Briefing, AAAS, 1:30 pm EST (livestreamed)
  • NASA Administrator Bolden “State of NASA” speech, Langley Research Center, 1:30 pm EST (watch on NASA TV)
  • NASA KSC officials media telecon, virtual, 3:00 pm EST
  • NASA HQ  Budget Briefing telecon, virtual, 5:00 pm EST (listen at NASA’s News Audio site)
• ISU-DC Space Cafe Featuring NASA’s Victor Sparrow, The Science Club, 1136 19th St., NW, Washington, DC, 7:00 pm EST
• MIT Washington Seminar Series (5th seminar), Maggiano’s Little Italy, Washington, DC

Wednesday, February 10

• HASC Hearing on Understanding and Deterring Russia, 2118 Rayburn, 10:00 am EST
• Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Hearing on FY2017 Air Force Budget Request, 192 Dirksen, 10:30 am EST

Wednesday-Thursday, February 10-11

• COSPAR-ISECG Workshop on Science Enabled by Human Exploration, CNES HQ, Paris, FR

Thursday, February 11

• The Martian: Science Fiction and Science Fact (AIAA/RAeS), British Embassy, Washington, DC, 6:00 pm EST