What’s Happening in Space Policy August 16-30, 2026

What’s Happening in Space Policy August 16-30, 2026

By Marcia Smith | Posted: August 16, 2026 5:36 pm ET | Last Updated: August 16, 2026 5:43 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the weeks of August 16-30, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess except for pro forma sessions. The House returns on August 31, the Senate on September 14 (after the Labor Day holiday).

During the Weeks

We have one more week of relative quiet before the pace picks up, so we’re including the next two weeks in this edition plus one more day (Sunday, August 30) since the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for launch early that morning.

Two items are on our watch list: Katalyst Space’s continued attempts to attach LINK to NASA’s Swift Observatory and reboost it before it reenters (the last update was August 11), and if there is any more news about potential damage to Russia’s Soyuz rocket production line following a Ukrainian missile strike yesterday. We’ll post any news we get about either of those.

On Tuesday, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot will become the first French woman to perform a spacewalk. Credit: ESA

As for scheduled events, this week NASA will conduct the second in a series of three spacewalks at the ISS this month. NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot will exit the International Space Station at 8:35 am Tuesday morning and spend six-and-a-half hours swapping a space-to-ground antenna on the Z1 truss segment.

Menon completed his first spacewalk on August 6 when he and Jessica Meir installed hardware in preparation for installation of the next Roll-out Solar Array. This will be Adenot’s first spacewalk and the first by a French woman. NASA coverage begins at 7:00 am ET.

The third in this series is next week on August 25. NASA hasn’t announced which astronauts will perform that one.

Next week is busy with important conferences and meetings and, possibly, a notable Chinese launch.

The 40th annual Small Satellite Conference begins a week from today (August 23) and runs through August 26. Started by a trailblazing group of Utah State University professors who were smallsat advocates in the 1980s when big satellites were the standard — Frank Redd, Gil Moore, and Rex McGill — attendance has outgrown the university’s historic venue in Logan and moved down to Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. The theme this year is “The Clouds Above the Clouds” — satellite constellations that “power critical missions in navigation, Earth and space observation, communications, and beyond.”  The keynote speaker is Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, Director of the Space Development Agency and Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Missile Warning and Tracking.

Here in the D.C. area, the 2026 Intelligence & National Security Summit takes place August 26-27 in Bethesda, MD. Co-hosted by AFCEA and INSA, the summit is about national security writ large, but national security and space are inextricably linked. A Strategic Priorities panel features the directors or deputy directors of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, for example.

China space-watchers are tracking the upcoming launch of China’s next lunar mission during a launch window that opens August 24. Chang’e-7 is headed to the Moon’s South Pole to search for that water ice we hear so much about, thought to be in permanently shadowed regions there. Deposited by comets over the eons and protected from the Sun so it didn’t evaporate, the existence of water ice is the foundation of NASA’s drive to put a Moon Base at the South Pole. China’s interested too. Chang’e-7 not only has a lander and rover, but a “hopper” and a lunar orbiter. China already has put landers/rovers on the near-side and far-side of the Moon and returned samples on the Chang’e-5 (near-side) and Chang’e-6 (far-side) missions.

China doesn’t officially announce launch dates until shortly before liftoff, but China space-watchers like journalist Andrew Jones gleans insight from Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) warning them to avoid certain areas. He reports the launch window is August 24-31. China says only it’s in the second half of 2026. One potential wrinkle is the Long March-7A failure a week ago. Chang’e-7 will launch on a Long March-5, but Long March-7A and Long March-5 share some common systems. They don’t appear to be implicated from what little is known so far, however. Hopefully we’ll have more clarity by the next edition of What’s Happening.

An intriguing day-long meeting at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is scheduled for August 26 on “Designing Governance and Economic Frameworks for the Emerging Cislunar and Lunar Economy.” Speakers and the time aren’t posted on the website yet, but it says they will “(1) assess the current governance structures under-girding the cislunar and lunar economy; and (2) identify major gaps in those structures that will emerge as the economy expands.” Sounds fascinating.

The big NASA event that’s coming up is the August 30 launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center. We’ll have more on that next week, but be sure to put it on your calendar for 7:26 am ET (weather permitting, of course).

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope being rotated to vertical inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at KSC, June 25, 2026. Photo credit: NASA/Sydney Rohde (Rocz)

We mentioned last week we’d keep an eye out for the change-of-command ceremony for Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess, recently confirmed for promotion to General, to become the new Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, succeeding Gen. B. Chance Saltzman. That’s going to be on September 3 and it’s actually called “Change-of-Responsibility” instead. Saltzman had his retirement ceremony on Thursday, but the emcee read a statement from the Secretary of the Air Force that said his official retirement is October 31.

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday morning, August 16, 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 18

Wednesday, August 19

Thursday-Friday, August 20-21

Friday, August 21

Sunday-Wednesday, August 23-26

Monday, August 24

Tuesday, August 25

Wednesday, August 26

Wednesday-Thursday, August 26-27

Wednesday-Friday, August 26-28 (local time)

Sunday, August 30

Last Updated: Aug 16, 2026 5:43 pm ET

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