What’s Happening in Space Policy August 23-29, 2020

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of August 23-29, 2020 and any insight we can offer about them. The Senate is in recess except for pro forma sessions. The House also has only pro forma sessions scheduled, but committee meetings will take place.

During the Week

Nope. No rest for the weary this week either, even as the lazy, hazy days of summer come to an end (such as they were). It’s another busy week sitting in front of our computers on Zoom, Teams, WebEx or whatever.

Congress is relatively quiet at least. The House was in session on Saturday, passing legislation to deal with the Postal Service crisis. It has only pro forma sessions scheduled through September 14, though committees will meet in the interim.  A handful of committee meetings are coming up tomorrow (Monday) and Friday, but none about the space program. As of this moment the Senate is not scheduled to meet for legislative business until September 8 and no committee meetings are listed, but the House and Senate schedules can change at any time.

Elsewhere it’s busy, busy, busy.  AIAA’s annual Propulsion and Energy Forum begins tomorrow and runs through Wednesday (paired with the AIAA/IEEE Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium through Friday).  Virtual, of course. Among the speakers are NASA Glenn Research Center Director Marla Pérez-Davis, Lockheed Martin’s Robert Lightfoot (former Acting NASA Administrator), and NASA AA for human exploration and operations Kathy Lueders. NASA AA for aeronautics Robert Pearce speaks at the Electric Aircraft symposium on Wednesday.

The steering committee of the Astro 2020 Decadal Survey on astronomy and astrophysics will get updates from its sponsors — NSF (Ralph Gaume), DOE (Kathy Turner), and NASA (Paul Hertz) — on Tuesday. The open sessions will be livestreamed on Zoom, but note that you must request the password from the National Academies. Instructions are on the agenda.

The American Astronautical Society, NASA and CASIS/ISSNL have divided the 2020 ISS Research and Development Conference (ISSRDC) into segments this year including three plenaries. The first plenary is on Thursday. It features a who’s who of officials from NASA and industry. NASA participants include Jim Bridenstine, Kathy Lueders, Thomas Zurbuchen, Joel Montelbano and Mike Gold. Industry representatives include Mike Suffredini (Axiom Space), Richard DalBello (Virgin Galactic), Andrew Rush (Made in Space) and Nicole Wagner (LambaVision). Our esteemed colleague at Space News, Jeff Foust, will moderate a panel discussion on the State of the ISS National Lab with Alex MacDonald, NASA Chief Economist and ISSNL Program Executive; Ken Shield, COO of CASIS; and Marybeth Edeen of NASA’s ISS Research Integration Office. Looks really good!  In addition to the event’s own livestream, it will be broadcast on NASA TV. FYI, the other plenaries are on September 17 and October 22. Upcoming “Technical Sessions” are September 22-24.

The Aerospace Corporation’s Space Policy Show this week (Thursday) is on public-private partnerships in the space sector. It features Randy Segal, a partner at the Hogan Lovells law firm who is co-leader of its Space and Satellite practice.

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.

Monday-Wednesday, August 24-26

• AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum, virtual

Tuesday, August 25

• Astro 2020 Steering Committee, virtual, 12:00-3:00 pm ET

Wednesday, August 26

• Artemis Accords and the Future of Space Governance (Space Court Foundation), virtual, 1:00 pm ET
• Past, Present, and Future of Women in Space (NASA), 3:00 pm ET, NASA TV

Thursday, August 27

• ISS R&D Conference (ISSRDC) Plenary Session 1, virtual, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm ET
• Public-Private Partnerships in the Space Sector (Aerospace Corp.), 1:00 pm ET