What’s Happening in Space Policy August 11-24, 2024

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next two weeks, August 11-24, 2024, and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until September 9 except for pro forma sessions.

During the Weeks

The next two weeks are pretty quiet, so we’re grouping them together.

Our top pick is the set of five public hearings that the FAA is holding near Boca Chica, TX to gather input on SpaceX’s plans to increase the Starship launch and landing cadence at its Starbase facility near Brownsville, TX. Four in-person hearings are this week and the fifth will be held virtually next week.

Two of the in-person hearings are on Tuesday (1:00-3:00 pm CENTRAL Time, and 5:30-7:30 CT) at the South Padre Island Convention Center. Two more are on Thursday at the same times at the Port Isabel Event & Cultural Center. Both towns are just north of SpaceX’s Starbase facility next to Boca Chica Beach. The fifth, virtual, hearing is next Tuesday, August 20.

SpaceX is launching test flights of its enormous Starship/Super Heavy rocket from Starbase already and is seeking permission for 25 Starship/Super Heavy launches, 25 Starship landings, and 25 Super Heavy landings per year. SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk designed Starship to achieve his vision to create a multi-planet species by sending a million people to live on Mars. He estimates that will require launching a million tons of mass to orbit every year, which would mean multiple Starship launches every day.

Some environmentalists are alarmed at the effect the launches and landings would have on wildlife refuges in the Boca Chica area.  SpaceX also is seeking permission to conduct as many as 44 Starship launches and landings a year at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The FAA held public scoping meetings on that proposal in June.

The FAA regulates commercial space launches and reentries to ensure they meet public safety requirements and leads an interagency process to review environmental impact, national security or foreign policy concerns, and insurance requirements for the launch operator. That’s what these hearings are about. Almost 70 public comments have been submitted already both for and against the proposal.

Starship has many uses including as one of the Human Landing Systems to put astronauts back on the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis program. One of reasons to send people back to the Moon is to conduct science and a week from Tuesday (August 20) a Lunar Surface Science Workshop will explore the topic: “Science Drivers and Capabilities for Lunar Surface Habitat Research Facilities.”

An update on the Moon to Mars architecture from Jacob Bleacher and others will be followed by speakers on “Fundamental, Translational, and Applied Science on the Moon.” Lisa Carnell, Director of the Biological and Physical Sciences Division in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, will be joined by representatives from NASA’s Human Research Program (Steven Platts), astrobiology (Becky McCauley Rench) and heliophysics (Sabrina Savage) disciplines, and the agency’s in-situ resource utilization and manufacturing lead Gerald Sanders.

This week at the International Space Station, Russia will launch its next cargo spacecraft, Progress MS-28, late Wednesday EDT (Thursday morning local time at the launch site) with docking on Saturday. NASA usually provides live coverage of ISS launches and dockings, but nothing is listed on the NASA TV schedule as of today.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit, at 69 NASA’s oldest active astronaut, is getting ready to launch to the ISS on a Soyuz spacecraft four weeks from today. He’ll answer questions from reporters on Friday morning as part of the usual pre-launch interviews. The event will air on NASA TV.

Note that “NASA TV” is a term we use generically to refer to NASA’s variety of media outlets. NASA actually is phasing out NASA TV itself, switching entirely to the NASA+ streaming service by the end of this month. If you haven’t found it yet, NASA+ is plus.nasa.gov.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning, August 11, are shown below. Check back throughout the weeks for others we learn about later and add to our Calendar or changes to these.

Tuesday, August 13

• Two FAA Public Meetings on Increasing SpaceX Launch/Landing Cadence at Boca Chica, TX, South Padre Island, Texas, 1:00-3:00 pm CENTRAL Time and 5:30-7:30 pm CT

Tuesday-Thursday, August 13-15

• Preserving the Race for Space 2024: From the Earth to the Moon and Beyond, Space Center Houston, Houston, Texas

Wednesday, August 14 (Thursday, August 15 local time)

• Launch of Progress MS-28 Cargo Ship to ISS, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
  • August 14, 11:20 pm EDT
  • August 15, 8:20 am local time in Baikonur

Thursday, August 15

• Two FAA Public Meetings on Increasing SpaceX Launch/Landing Cadence at Boca Chica, TX, Port Isabel, Texas, 1:00-3:00 pm CENTRAL Time and 5:30-7:30 pm CT

Thursday-Friday, August 15-16

• Texas Area Planetary Science (TAPS) Meeting, San Antonio, Texas

Friday, August 16

• Pre-Launch Interviews with NASA Astronaut Don Pettit, virtual, 10:00 am ET (NASA TV)
• Deep Space Food Challenge Finale, Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, Columbus, OH (awards ceremony will be livestreamed, time ?)

Tuesday, August 20

• LSSW 24: Science Drivers and Capabilities for Lunar Habitat Research Facilities, virtual, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm ET
• MSBR Luncheon with A.C. Charania and Lisa Costa on Space Emerging Technology, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am-1:00 pm ET
• FAA Public Meeting on Increasing SpaceX Launch/Landing Cadence at Boca Chica, TX, virtual, 6:30-8:30 pm ET (5:30-7:30 pm CENTRAL Time)

Saturday, August 24-Saturday, August 31

• Microsatellites and Their Use in Planetary and Astrobiology Research Workshop, Tartu, Estonia