What’s Happening in Space Policy January 4-10, 2026

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of January 4-10, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The Constitution sets noon on January 3 as the date when new sessions of Congress begin every year. The House and Senate each briefly met in pro forma sessions at the appointed hour on Saturday to officially begin the second session of the 119th Congress.

Senators return to work tomorrow (Monday) and Representatives on Tuesday. They have a full plate of issues as the mid-term elections loom and the United States begins to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, which led to the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

The Constitution established Congress as one of three co-equal branches of government along with the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. Article I spells out the duties and powers of Congress including that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

Congress is still working on that for FY2026, which began three months ago. Only three of the 12 bills have been enacted and the Continuing Resolution funding everything else right now expires in four weeks on January 30. That includes the Defense as well as the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill that funds NASA and NOAA. Those two bills have been reported by the House and Senate appropriations committees and the Defense bill passed the House in July. But it hasn’t passed the Senate yet. CJS hasn’t passed either chamber.

(Congress passed the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, NDAA, on December 10, but it is an authorization bill, not appropriations, and provides no money. The reconciliation bill — the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, OBBBA — has been enacted and provides $150 billion for defense including almost $14 billion for the U.S. Space Force, but that’s in addition to the approximately $830 billion expected in the FY2026 appropriations bill.  Similarly, the $10 billion for NASA in the reconciliation bill is on top of whatever Congress appropriates to NASA and is spread over multiple years.)

The Senate was making bipartisan progress on a “minibus” of five bills including Defense and CJS just before the holiday recess, but the Administration’s sudden announcement on December 17 that it plans to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado led some Democrats to turn against the compromise. (NCAR is part of the National Science Foundation, also in the CJS bill.) The Trump Administration’s military attack in Venezuela yesterday likely will further complicate negotiations as efforts to pass a War Powers Resolution blocking use of U.S. military force in Venezuela without congressional approval ramp up. The Defense appropriations bill might become another vehicle for Congress to act, perhaps slowing progress.

Trying to pass all of the remaining nine bills before January 30 was a challenge even before yesterday’s military action, which is sharpening political divides. After the longest government shutdown in history ended less than eight weeks ago, another cannot be ruled out even though it is far from clear how either party would benefit. Another CR — perhaps even a full-year CR as happened in FY2025 — is an alternative. Whether any progress will be made this week is an open question. As we often say, anything can happen in Congress.  At the moment, both chambers are expected to continue debating health care as well as War Powers.

Off the Hill, as we discussed last week there are several interesting conferences and events including the American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting in Phoenix, AZ starting today. NASA will hold Town Halls and other events at the AAS including meetings of the three astrophysics program analysis groups or PAGs (ExoPAG, COPAG and PhysPAG). NASA posted a list of them all.

NASA’s Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) meets in Laurel, MD from Tuesday to Thursday.  Top NASA officials from the Science Mission Directorate (Louise Procktor and Joel Kearns), Space Technology Mission Directorate (Niki Werkheiser), and Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (Lori Glaze) are on the agenda plus an Artemis update, a recap of Firefly’s very successful Blue Ghost Mission 1 (BGM1) lunar landing in March 2025 and other fascinating sessions. A virtual option is available.

In addition to ESA’s press conference tomorrow with astronaut Sophie Adenot who is getting ready to launch to the International Space Station, NASA will have a news conference on Tuesday to preview two upcoming spacewalks by NASA astronauts. The first spacewalk is this Thursday with Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman. It will be Fincke’s 10th and Cardman’s first. The second spacewalk is next week. NASA hasn’t said who the participants are.

The Atlantic Council’s “Cosmic Coordination: Space Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition” meeting on Thursday afternoon looks really interesting. Speakers include representatives from the U.S., UAE, Japanese, and Dutch governments, several space companies, and two well known names to readers of this website who now are affiliated with the Atlantic Council — Kevin O’Connell and Charity Weeden. Government representatives are Michael Overby, Deputy Director of Outer Space Affairs at the U.S. State Department; Taylor Jordan, Director of NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce; Keiichi Wada, Director of JAXA’s Washington office; Jawaher AlMheiri, commercial attaché at the UAE Embassy; and Marcella Kneppers, Innovation, Technology and Science Senior Advisor at the Kingdom of the Netherlands Embassy. Company reps are Tahara Dawkins, Astroscale US; Jared Stout, Axiom Space; Nicolas Maubert, Arca Stella LLC; and Dan Kroboth, Eutelsat.

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-Thursday, January 4-8

• American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting, Phoenix, AZ

Monday, January 5

• Press Conference with ESA Astronaut Sophie Adenot, ESA Astronaut Training Center, Cologne, Germany, 14:00-15:00 CET (8:00-9:00 am EST), watch on ESA TV

Tuesday, January 6

• NASA Media Briefing to Preview Upcoming Spacewalks, JSC, 2:00 pm ET (watch on YouTube)

Tuesday-Thursday, January 6-8

• NASA Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD/online

Thursday, January 8

• ESA DG Annual Press Briefing, ESA HQ, Paris, FR, 10:00 CET (4:00 am EST), watch on ESA TV
• NASA Spacewalk at ISS (Fincke/Cardman), time TBA
• Space Diplomacy in an Era of Strategic Competition (Atlantic Council), 1400 L St., NW, Washington, DC/online, 3:00 pm ET