What’s Happening in Space Policy December 7-13, 2025

What’s Happening in Space Policy December 7-13, 2025

By Marcia Smith | Posted: December 7, 2025 4:34 pm ET | Last Updated: December 9, 2025 1:25 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of December 7-13, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The big event this week is the Senate Commerce Committee’s Executive Session tomorrow (Monday) at 5:30 pm ET when they will vote — for a second time — on Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA Administrator. His is one of eight nominations that will be considered.

The Senate Commerce Committee will vote again on Jared Isaacman’s nomination to be NASA Administrator tomorrow (Monday) at 5:30 pm ET.

Isaacman was already approved by the committee back on April 30 by a vote of 19-9, but President Trump withdrew the nomination on May 31 after a rift with Elon Musk, who recommended Isaacman. Trump changed his mind and re-nominated him last month. The committee held a second nomination hearing last week and now will vote again.  All 15 Republicans voted for him last time and are expected to do so again. Four of 13 Democrats did too, including Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and at last week’s hearing indicated she will do so again. Barring any big surprises, he’ll clear the committee and a vote by the full Senate could come anytime after that. Committee chair Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Cantwell both expressed optimism that Isaacman will be in the job by the end of the year.

NASA likely will still be operating under the Continuing Resolution (CR) that ended the government shutdown last month. That keeps NASA funded at its FY2025 level of $24.8 billion. NASA is part of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill. The FY2026 CJS bill has cleared the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, but hasn’t reached the floor in either chamber.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune has been trying to put together a second “minibus” that combines the Defense bill, which passed the House on July 18, with several other bills including CJS. During Isaacman’s hearing last week, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), who chairs the Senate Appropriations CJS subcommittee, said he hopes the CJS bill will be voted on in the next two weeks before the Senate recesses for the year, currently planned for December 19. The House also will leave for the year that week, so it’s unlikely to get a vote in that chamber before the holidays. As a reminder, the CR covers through January 30. Only three of the 12 FY2026 appropriations bills have been enacted (MilCon-VA, Legislative Branch, and Agriculture).  They were combined into the first minibus and passed along with the CR. (When all 12 bills are packaged together they are an “omnibus.” Smaller packages are referred to as a “minibus.”)

While the Senate Commerce Committee is voting on Isaacman’s nomination tomorrow, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and his two Russian colleagues, Sergey Ryzhikov and Aleksey Zubritsky, will be starting their return to Earth on Soyuz MS-27 after an 8-month stay on the International Space Station. Ryzhikov handed over command of the ISS to NASA’s Mike Fincke this morning. When Soyuz MS-27 undocks at 8:41 pm ET tomorrow, Expedition 73 will end and Expedition 74 begins.

It takes about 3.5 hours from undocking to setting down on the steppe of Kazakhstan near Karaganda where Russia’s crewed spacecraft land. That will take place just after midnight at 12:04 am ET Tuesday (10:04 am local time at the landing site). NASA will provide live coverage of hatch closing, departure, and landing starting at 4:45 pm ET Monday on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and NASA’s YouTube channel.

The ISS is a partnership among the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and 11 European countries working through the European Space Agency. Not a day has gone by in the past 25 years — since November 2, 2000 — that an international crew hasn’t been aboard. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 altered terrestrial geopolitics, but cooperation on the ISS has persevered. All the partners except Russia are now developing a new international space station, much smaller than this one, that will orbit the Moon as part of the Artemis program. At one time NASA hoped Russia would participate, too, but that’s not in the cards anymore. The United Arab Emirates will build the airlock NASA once hoped Russia would provide.

The Gateway partners are just a few of the 59 countries that have signed the U.S.-led Artemis Accords that set out 10 principles for responsible behavior on the Moon. On Thursday morning, NASA and some of those signatories will celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Accords at the Meridian International Center in D.C. The event will be livestreamed on Meridian International’s website and social media channels.

The Philippines became the 59th signatory on October 27, 2025. Latvia is soon to become the 60th. Any country is welcome to sign the Accords to indicate they agree with the principles. They do not necessarily plan to participate in the Artemis program or even have space programs of their own.

Among the speakers are Mike Gold and Gabriel Swiney who led development of the Accords when they were at NASA and the State Department respectively. Gold is now with Redwire and Swiney at NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce. Joining them are NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya and an impressive list of other current and former U.S. government officials and industry representatives, as well as Yosuke Kaneko from the Embassy of Japan and Annabelle Dullin from the Embassy of Luxembourg. Looks like a splendid event.

That’s a busy day, with the annual Eilene M. Galloway Symposium on Critical Issues in Space Law at Akin Gump in D.C. (virtual option available) and Women in Aerospace’s (WIA’s) Awards Dinner in the evening at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City across the river in Arlington, VA. NASA’s Nicky Fox, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, will receive WIA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, along with other remarkable award winners. The WIA event originally was planned for October 9, but postponed because of the government shutdown.

Among the other terrific events this week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will release “A Science Strategy for the Human  Exploration of Mars” on Tuesday at noon. Co-chaired by Lindy Elkins-Tanton from UC-Berkeley and Dava Newman from MIT, the report “outlines how future missions can advance the highest-priority scientific goals for understanding the Red Planet and preparing for sustained human exploration.”  The event is in-person at the Academies’ Keck Center in D.C. and will be livestreamed.

Image from Committee on “A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars.” Credit: National Academies

One last event we’ll highlight is the Space Force Association’s 2025 Spacepower Conference in Orlando, FL, Wednesday through Friday (the main sessions are Thursday-Friday). It’s an understatement to say they’ve got an impressive list of speakers.

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink will speak at the Spacepower Conference in Orlando on Thursday.

It includes all the top military space leaders starting with Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink. The Department of the Air Force comprises the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and the U.S. Air Force. USSF Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman will be there along with USSF Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Shawn Bratton and many, many others. Commander of U.S. Space Command Gen. Stephen Whiting also will be there. U.S. Space Command is one of the 11 Unified Combatant Commands.

The commercial sector is also well represented with speakers from Peraton (Jes Kalmanson), True Anomaly (Steve Kitay), Lockheed Martin (Robert Lightfoot), and Blue Origin (Tom Martin) to name but a few. Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, now Managing Partner of The Artemis Group, Matt Anderson, who’s been nominated to be NASA Deputy Administrator, and Greg Autry, nominated to be NASA CFO, also are on the agenda. The website says the meeting is sold out and there’s no virtual option that we can see, so if you’re interested hopefully you’ve signed up already.

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, December 7

Monday, December 8

Monday-Tuesday, December 8-9

  • Soyuz MS-27 Undocking and Landing (watch on NASA+, Amazon Prime, NASA’s YouTube channel)
    • Monday
      • 5:10 pm ET, Hatch Closing (NASA coverage begins 4:45 pm ET)
      • 8:41 pm ET, Undocking (NASA coverage begins 8:15 pm ET)
      • 11:10 pm ET, Deorbit Burn (NASA coverage for this and landing begins 10:30 pm ET)
    • Tuesday
      • 12:04 am ET, landing

Tuesday, December 9

Tuesday-Wednesday, December 9-10

Wednesday, December 10

Wednesday-Friday, December 10-12

Thursday, December 11

Thursday-Friday, December 11-12

 

This article has been updated.

Last Updated: Dec 09, 2025 1:25 pm ET

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