What’s Happening in Space Policy April 16-22, 2023

What’s Happening in Space Policy April 16-22, 2023

By Marcia Smith | Posted: April 16, 2023 12:56 pm ET | Last Updated: April 16, 2023 5:44 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 16-22, 2023 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

SpaceX’s two-stage Starship space transportation system stacked for the first time, August 6, 2021, Boca Chica, TX. The silver first stage is called Super Heavy, and the second stage, covered in black thermal protection tiles, is Starship, a name also used to refer to the two of them together. Credit: SpaceX

Wow, what a week we have coming up!

Congress is back with a slew of space-related hearings, the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium extravaganza is in Colorado Springs, and the BIG EVENT is SpaceX’s attempt at the first “orbital” launch of Starship/Super Heavy from Boca Chica, TX.

Late Friday afternoon, the FAA issued a license allowing SpaceX to conduct Starship/Super Heavy launches from Boca Chica for the next 5 years. Boca Chica is near Brownsville, just a few miles from the border with Mexico. SpaceX calls its test and launch facility there Starbase.

The first test flight is currently scheduled for tomorrow (Monday) between 8:00-10:30 am ET (7:00-9:30 am local time at the launch site). This is the first launch of a new rocket so a delay or a scrub would not be surprising. A backup opportunity is the same time on Tuesday. The Twitter feeds for SpaceX and Elon Musk are the best way to keep up to date: @SpaceX and @elonmusk. We’ll be tweeting, too, so @SpcPlcyOnline is another option!

A failure wouldn’t be surprising either. SpaceX conducted 5 test flights of a Starship prototype in 2020-2021 and the first four crashed on landing.

That 5th test was almost two years go on May 5, 2021. Despite Musk’s prediction that Starship would be routinely launching by now, it’s taken this long to get to the first test flight of the full vehicle. Last year SpaceX aficionados were betting that Starship would launch before NASA’s Space Launch System, but NASA won that race. The only point is that both government-developed and private sector-developed rockets are prone to delays.

Starship is the second stage of the vehicle although the name is often used for the entire rocket. It’s the part that will carry cargo and/or crew and that NASA will use as the Human Landing System for at least the first two Artemis landings on the Moon.

Super Heavy is the first stage and has never flown. It is test unto itself. Not only does it have a record-breaking number of engines, 33, but the Space-X designed and built Raptor engines use methane and liquid oxygen — methalox — as propellant. Only two methalox rockets have been launched so far, one by China and one by Relativity Space, and neither reached orbit and those were small rockets. Methalox is gaining in popularity, though. Blue Origin uses it for the BE-4 engines it has developed that will power its own New Glenn rocket and the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan.

Starship/Super Heavy stands 120 meters (394 feet) tall and is 9 meters (29.5 feet) in diameter. SpaceX captured an iconic photo of the two stages coming together the first time the vehicle was stacked in August 2021.

The first and second stages of SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy rocket being mated together. Credit: SpaceX

The countdown timeline, flight timeline, and flight profile are posted on SpaceX’s website. SpaceX’s webcast will begin 45 minutes before launch. As SpaceX wryly states on the countdown timeline: “00:00:00 Excitement Guaranteed.”

There’s a hazard area around Starbase that will be evacuated for the launch. SpaceX is circulating this map.

Keep out zone for Starship/Super Heavy launch on April 17, 2023. Source: SpaceX

If it lifts off, the rocket will travel eastward over the Gulf of Mexico. A critical milestone is 55 seconds after launch when the rocket experiences maximum dynamic pressure or Max Q. Many would consider the test a success if it just gets through that step, but the plan is for Super Heavy to separate from Starship and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship will continue around the globe splashing down near Hawaii 90 minutes after launch. It does not make an orbit of Earth so really is suborbital even though this is often described as an orbital flight test.

Many things could delay the launch, including weather. SpaceX tweeted this morning that they’re keeping an eye out on wind shear.

As it turns out, the launch is happening just when the Space Foundation’s annual Space Symposium is taking place in Colorado. Every year, the extravaganza brings the civil, commercial and national security space sectors together for public presentations by top U.S. and international officials and lots and lots of behind-the-scenes discussions. One must register to attend either in-person or virtually, but NASA TV will broadcast two NASA sessions: Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy’s keynote on Tuesday morning at 11:15 am ET and a Moon-to-Mars panel she’s moderating on Wednesday at 4:00 pm ET. The Wednesday panel features key NASA M2M officials: Ken Bowersox, who will succeed Kathy Lueders as head of the Space Operations Mission Directorate next month (he’s Deputy now); Jim Free, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate; Nicky Fox, Science Mission Directorate; Robert Gibbs, Mission Support Directorate; and Jim Reuter, Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Congress is ramping up its hearing schedule. Perhaps of most interest to readers of this website will be the Senate and House Appropriations Committee hearings on NASA’s FY2024 budget request on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, and the Senate Appropriations hearing on the request for the Space Force (and Air Force) on Tuesday. NASA TV will broadcast the two NASA hearings in addition to the committees’ webcasts.

But there are quite a few others, too. For example, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will have a hearing on Rep. Frank Lucas’s (R-OK) draft legislation to establish NOAA as an independent agency and another on “Protecting Against Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement” with the Inspectors General of five agencies under their jurisdiction including NASA. The House Appropriations CJS and THUD subcommittees will hear from the Secretary of Commerce and Secretary of Transportation this week where space issues might come up, though the subcommittees often hold hearings separately on NOAA and the FAA (of which the Office of Commercial Space Transportation is part) later. And there are still more. Here’s a quick list by sector.

Civil Space (NASA, NOAA, FAA)

  • Tuesday, April 18
    • 10:00 am ET — House SS&T: Establishing NOAA as an Independent Agency
    • 1:30 pm ET — House Appropriations CJS: Department of Commerce FY2024 Budget Request (incl NOAA)
    • 2:30 pm ET — Senate Appropriations CJS: NASA and NSF FY2024 Budget Requests
  • Wednesday, April 19
    • 10:00 am ET — House SS&T: Protecting Against Waste, Fraud and Mismanagement
    • 1:30 pm ET — House Appropriations CJS: NASA FY2024 Budget Request
  • Thursday, April 20
    • 10:00 am ET — House Appropriations THUD: Department of Transportation FY2024 Budget Request (incl FAA)

National Security Space

  • Tuesday, April 18
    • 10:00 am ET — Senate Appropriations Defense: FY2024 Budget Requests for the Air Force and Space Force
    • 3:00 pm ET — HASC Strategic Forces: FY2024 Budget Request for Missile Defense and Missile Defeat
  • Wednesday, April 19
    • 10:30 am ET — SASC Emerging Threats: All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (once referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). Note this will be preceded by a closed hearing on the same topic.
  • Thursday, April 20
    • 9:00 am ET — House Appropriations MilCon/VA: FY2024 Budget Request for Air Force and Space Force Military Construction and Family Housing

As always there are many more events, but we will mention just one more. Two Russian cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, will try again to conduct a series of spacewalks to continue outfitting the Nauka module that arrived in 2021. They accomplished the first of four in November, but the second had to be scrubbed in December when the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft just outside the airlock started leaking coolant into space. Soyuz MS-22 is gone now, replaced by Soyus MS-23, and the spacewalks will resume Tuesday night at 9:30 pm ET. NASA TV will cover it as usual. The remaining two are planned for April 25 and May 4. A US/UAE spacewalk, the first for an Arab astronaut (Sultan Alneyadi), will take place between those last two on April 28. Always busy up there on the ISS!

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-Monday, April 16-17 (continued from April 14)

Sunday-Thursday, April 16-20

Monday, April 17

Monday-Thursday, April 17-20

Tuesday, April 18

Wednesday, April 19

Wednesday-Friday, April 19-21

Thursday, April 20

Friday, April 21

Saturday, April 22

Last Updated: Apr 16, 2023 5:44 pm ET

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