What’s Happening in Space Policy February 2-8, 2025

What’s Happening in Space Policy February 2-8, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of February 2-8, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

We’re going to start with what’s NOT happening this week because word is still getting out. NASA is pausing all meetings of its planetary science “assessment groups” and “analysis groups” — AGs as they are collectively known. That means the Mercury Exploration Assessment Group (MExAG) meeting scheduled for this week (February 4-6) at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab is canceled according to APL’s Ed Rivera-Valentín.

Because of the below request by NASA, next week’s MExAG meeting has been canceled. ????

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— Ed Rivera-Valentín (@planettreky.bsky.social) January 31, 2025 at 8:02 PM

MExAG is one of eight NASA Planetary Science Analysis Groups. The others are: Extraterrestrial Materials Analysis Group (ExMAG), Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), Mapping and Planetary Spatial  Infrastructure Team (MAPSIT), Mars Exploration Analysis Group (MEPAG), Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), and Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG).  They are community-based groups that are not part of NASA’s formal advisory committee structure under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). Instead, they provide feedback to NASA’s Planetary Science Division, but not recommendations.

Late on Friday, NASA sent a message to those groups requesting them to pause all meetings and activities while the agency “continues to review and ensure compliance with presidential actions.” That message adds two working groups to the list of paused activities: OWWG, the Oceans Worlds Working Group, and the “cross-AG EDIA Working Group.”  We asked NASA for a copy of the text and whether the same request applies to the AGs for the Earth Science and Astrophysics divisions, but it being a weekend they replied they’d have to get back to us tomorrow (Monday). In the meantime, Keith Cowing of NASAWatch (@NASAWatch) posted the text on X.

OPAG has a meeting coming up February 25-27. An email from OPAG co-chairs Carol Paty and Morgan Cable says that meeting, plus their planned Town Hall at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March, are thereby paused and if no guidance is received by February 7, the February 25-27 meeting will be canceled.

That’s all the info we have as of Sunday morning. [See our February 3 update.]

Now, as for what IS happening this week, NASA has two telecons about missions launching at the end of the month. On Tuesday, they’ll talk about the PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) constellation of four satellites to study the solar wind that will launch along with SphereX on February 27.

On Friday, the briefing is about the NASA payloads on Athena, the lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines for its second mission, IM-2. Part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Athena’s four-day launch window opens on February 26. NASA’s main payload is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), which is composed of a drill, TRIDENT, that will extract lunar regolith from three feet (one meter) below the surface and a mass spectrometer, MSOLO, to analyze that sample.

Illustration of Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander on the Moon. Credit: Intuitive Machines. On Friday, NASA will discuss the NASA experiments on the lander, which is scheduled for launch later this month.

NASA’s Lunar  Trailblazer will be along for the ride. One of NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) missions, that spacecraft will go into orbit around the Moon and search for water on the surface using infrared sensors.

The Washington Space Business Roundtable (WSBR) has an in-person luncheon in D.C. on Tuesday. Erin Miller of Space ISAC, Lauryn Williams from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, and Dianne Poster from NIST will discuss “emerging issues at the intersection of Space and Cybersecurity” with Deloitte’s Ryan Roberts.

Also on Tuesday, the Secure World Foundation will hold a webinar where Space Sustainability Research Fellow Charlie JP Bennett will report on his study of how arms control treaties are made. Bennett interviewed 22 current and former negotiators, diplomats and other experts “to learn more about the characteristics of successful arms control treaties and what role different actors can play in their development and maturation.”  Victoria Samson, SWF Chief Director, Space Security and Stability, will lead the discussion.

The Beyond Earth Institute has a webinar on Wednesday on “Exploring the Potential of Mining Helium-3 on the Moon.”  BEI President Steve Wolfe will moderate the discussion with Chris Salvino, President of Lunar Helium 3 Mining LLC; Ahmed Diallo, Program Director at Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); and Gerald Sanders, the lead for In-Situ Resource Utilization System Capability at NASA Johnson Space Center. Mining Helium-3 on the Moon and bringing it back to Earth to fuel fusion reactors has been discussed for decades, with former astronaut and former Senator Harrison (Jack) Schmitt one of its chief proponents. It’s getting renewed attention now, but the economics of mining anything on the Moon and bringing it back to Earth (as opposed to using it on the Moon on in space) remains a huge question. This webinar will explore “the technological hurdles to overcome mining lunar Helium-3, and the economic viability of such an endeavor.”

Among the other events is the first week of the annual meeting of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The S&T subcommittee meeting will be webcast, but two associated events that also could be quite interesting apparently will not.

Last week scientists announced the discovery of an asteroid, 2024 YR4, that has about a one percent chance of impacting Earth in December 2032. The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), chaired by NASA, and the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), chaired by ESA, will meet on the sides of the S&T subcommittee gathering, but the COPUOS website says the links to those are only for members of those groups.

Scientists are continually monitoring YR4. As they get more data they could conclude it’s not a risk after all, but if it is, SMPAG is the group tasked with developing an international response. NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer Emeritus Lindley Johnson told us SMPAG will discuss activating its efforts if YR4 is still on the risk list at the time of this meeting (Tuesday-Wednesday).

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-Friday , February 3-7 (continues next week)

Tuesday, February 4

Tuesday-Thursday, February 4-6

Wednesday, February 5

Wednesday-Thursday, February 5-6

Thursday, February 6

Friday, February 7

 

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