What’s Happening in Space Policy April 26-May 2, 2026

What’s Happening in Space Policy April 26-May 2, 2026

By Marcia Smith | Posted: April 26, 2026 12:03 pm ET | Last Updated: April 26, 2026 6:13 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of April 26-May 2, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

It’s a busy week yet again, especially on Capitol Hill. Both chambers are planning to take next week off and are trying to get a lot done before that. Much of Tuesday will be devoted to the visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the White House in the morning where some members of Congress will be in attendance and then in the afternoon when King Charles addresses a joint session of Congress, so they’re getting a quick start tomorrow (Monday). The House’s goal is to leave Thursday afternoon.

For the space policy community, there are seven hearings plus a subcommittee markup in that short period of time.

  • Monday
    • House Appropriations CJS subcommittee hearing on NASA’s FY2027 budget request, 3:30 pm ET
    • Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on Missile Defense including Golden Dome, 3:30 pm ET
  • Tuesday
    • House SS&T subcommittee hearing on NOAA’s FY2027 budget request, 9:00 am ET
    • Senate Appropriations CJS subcommittee hearing on NASA’s FY2027 budget request, 10:00 am ET
  • Wednesday
    • House Armed Services hearing on DOD’s FY2027 budget request, 10:00 am ET
    • House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Emerging Threats to U.S. Space Security, 10:00 am ET
  • Thursday
    • House Appropriations CJS subcommittee markup of FY2027 CJS bill including NASA and NOAA, 8:00 am ET
    • House Appropriations Defense subcommittee hearing on the FY2027 budget request for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force, 9:30 am ET

Top agency officials will be present at the budget hearings:  Jared Isaacman for NASA; Neil Jacobs for NOAA; Mark Berkowitz, Gen. Michael Guetlein, Lt. Gen. Heath Collins, and Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano for missile defense; Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine for DOD; and Troy Meink, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, and Gen. Chance Saltzman for the Department of the Air Force, which oversees the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

Scott Pace, Director of GW’s Space Policy Institute, will testify to a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Wednesday. Photo credit: GW Elliott School of Intl Affairs.

It’s rare for the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold a space-related hearing and its Subcommittee on Europe has chosen a prestigious group to discuss “Orbits of Influence: Emerging Threats to U.S. Space Security and Foreign Policy Implications.”  The three witnesses on Wednesday are:  Kari Bingen, Director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security in the first Trump Administration; Scott Pace, Director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and former Executive Secretary of the White House National Space Council in the first Trump Administration; and Mallory Stewart, CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks and former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability in the Biden Administration. Sounds really interesting.

Off the Hill there’s a lot going on, too. The Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) is meeting Tuesday-Thursday.  It begins on Tuesday afternoon in Washington, DC at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg Center, then moves to JHU’s Applied Physics Lab (JHUAPL)  in Laurel, MD where the LSIC Spring Meeting typically takes place for the last two days. Tuesday’s portion features a keynote from Carlos Garcia-Galan, head of NASA’s new Moon Base program, followed by a panel on building lunar infrastructure with international and commercial representatives (Yosuke Kaneko from the Embassy of Japan and Alicia Brown from the Commercial Space Federation). Lots more from government and industry over the course of the three days. A virtual option is available (registration required).

Rian Bahran, DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Reactors, will speak at the NETS conference on Tuesday. Photo credit: DOE

With all the renewed interest in space nuclear power and propulsion, this year’s Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space (NETS) conference in Dayton, Ohio (Monday-Thursday) should be a blockbuster. Sponsored by the American Nuclear Society, it heralds itself as “bridging the interplanetary gap and lighting up the final frontier,” adding that “NETS is far more than an engineering symposium. It is where the future of space nuclear power is decided.”

Among the speakers is Bhavya Lal, former NASA Associate Administrator for Technology, Policy and Strategy whose background is in nuclear engineering. She’s now with RAND and an adjunct professor at Georgetown and recently co-authored with Roger Myers a report for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Idaho National Lab on “Weighing the Future: Strategic Options for U.S. Space Nuclear Leadership.” There are keynote addresses each day and hers is on Wednesday.  The opening keynote is tomorrow evening by White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Coordinator for Strategic Capabilities Aaron Miles. Tuesday is DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Reactors Rian Bahran, and Thursday is JHUAPL Chief Scientist for Space Science Ralph McNutt.

Lots, lots more coming up this week. We’ll highlight just two more. On Wednesday morning, NASA’s ISS Advisory Committee will provide a brief (30 minute) recap of the most recent meeting of the U.S.-Russian Joint Commission that advises NASA and Roscosmos on operations of the International Space Station. Chaired by former astronaut and former NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana, the committee shares their findings with the public semi-annually. We’re happy to report that NASA finally has a website that lists the committee’s members and has summaries of previous open meetings as well as a tribute to Tom Stafford who chaired the committee for three decades from its inception in 1994 until his passing in 2024. Cabana took over in 2024 after he left NASA and joined Kam Ghaffarian’s IBX.

NASA will hold a news conference on Wednesday with astronaut Anil Menon who will launch to the ISS on Soyuz MS-29 in July. Photo credit: NASA

Speaking of the ISS, NASA will hold a news conference with astronaut Anil Menon on Wednesday afternoon. He’s at JSC before heading back to Russia to get ready to launch to the ISS on Soyuz MS-29 in July along with Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina.

This is his first spaceflight. His wife, Anna Menon, was a SpaceX employee when she flew to space on Polaris Dawn with then-private astronaut Jared Isaacman, Sarah Gillis, and Scott “Kidd” Poteet. She was selected as a NASA astronaut last year. Isaacman, now NASA Administrator, was asked at the Crew-12 launch in February if he planned to be at Baikonur for the next crewed Soyuz launch. He enthusiastically replied yes because a “good friend” is on the flight. TASS reported on April 11 that NASA confirmed he plans to be there and may meet with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Bakanov. Then-Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy met with Bakanov at the Crew-11 launch last year, but no NASA Administrator has been to a launch at Baikonur since Jim Bridenstine was Administrator. (Bridenstine was there in October 2018 for that “exciting” Soyuz MS-10 abort when the Soyuz rocket carrying NASA’s Nick Hague and Roscosmos’s Alexey Ovchinin suffered a catastrophic failure, but the capsule separated exactly as designed and carried them to a safe landing. They successfully reached the ISS on a second try on Soyuz MS-12, joined by Christina Koch. Hague and Ovchinin each flew to the ISS again after that.)

And we would be remiss not to mention that Russia’s Progress MS-34 cargo ship launched to the ISS last night from Baikonur and will arrive tomorrow about 8:00 pm EDT. NASA will provide live coverage.

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.

Monday, April 27

Monday-Thursday, April 27-30

Monday-Friday, April 27-May 1

Tuesday, April 28

Tuesday-Thursday, April 28-30

Wednesday, April 29

Thursday, April 30

Friday, May 1

Last Updated: Apr 26, 2026 6:13 pm ET

User Comments



SpacePolicyOnline.com has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.  We do not post comments that include links to other websites since we have no control over that content nor can we verify the security of such links.

SPACEPOLICYONLINE.COM

About | Contact | Privacy