What’s Happening in Space Policy July 17-21, 2017

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of July 17-21, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate will be in session this week.

During the Week

The big event this week is the annual International Space Station Research and Development (ISS R&D) conference organized by the American Astronautical Society.  This year it’s in Washington, DC at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.  Pre-conference events take place tomorrow (Monday).  Among the events is a session on the role of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in the evolution of ISS research and a joint NASA-JAXA workshop on maximizing the outcome of the ISS and the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), which is named Kibo. The workshop includes NASA’s Marybeth Edeen and Bill Gerstenmaier (head of NASA”s human spaceflight program), and JAXA Vice President and Director General of Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate Takashi Hamazaki and JAXA’s manager and director of the JEM utilization center, Kunihiro Matsumoto and Kazuyuki Tasaki, respectively.

Tuesday-Thursday are the main sessions of the conference, which will be livestreamed.  Among the keynote speakers are Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot, Bigelow Aerospace’s Robert Bigelow, SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoferretti.  NASA astronaut Kate Rubins is a featured speaker on a panel Tuesday morning.  A space policy panel will take place on Wednesday morning.

On exactly the same days (Monday-Thursday), NOAA will hold a conference at the City College of New York in New York City on “A New Era for NOAA Environmental Satellites” with its own who’s who of experts from the U.S., other countries (including China, Japan, South Korea and Brazil) and international organizations (e.g. EUMETSAT and the World Meteorological Organization).  NBC’s Al Roker is the luncheon keynote speaker on Monday.  Sessions focus on GOES-R, JPSS, Big Data, and spectrum issues.  The conference website does not indicate if any of it will be webcast.  If we find out, we will add the information to our calendar item.

And on three of those four days (Tuesday-Thursday), NASA will hold its annual Exploration Forum at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, CA.  Sponsored by the Solar System Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) it, too, has a jam-packed agenda with fascinating panels and speakers.

This week definitely has an embarrassment of riches for anyone interested in space science, technology and policy and we haven’t even gotten to Congress yet.

The House Appropriations Committee will mark up the bill (T-HUD) that funds FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation on Monday evening; the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Space Subcommittee will hold a hearing on planetary flagship missions, including Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper, on Tuesday morning; and the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has a nomination hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon that includes the nominations of Ellen Lord to be USD/ATL and Matthew Donovan to be Under Secretary of the Air Force (SASC Chairman Sen. McCain’s decision to remain in Arizona this week recovering from eye surgery could change that schedule, though).

Those events and others 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 Events of Interest list.

Monday (July 17)

• House Appropriations Full Cmte Markup Transportation-HUD FY2018 Bill, 2359 Rayburn House Office Building, 7:00 pm ET (webcast)

Monday-Thursday (July 17-20)

• • ISS R&D Conference, Omni Sheraton Hotel, Washington, DC
    • Monday, Pre-conference events
    • Tuesday-Thursday, main conference sessions (livestreamed)
  • NOAA Satellite Conference, The City College of New York, New York City

Tuesday (July 18)

• House SS&T Space Sbcmt Hrg on Planetary Flagship Missions, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• MSBR Luncheon Featuring NASA’s Bill Ochs (JWST Project Manager), Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET
• SASC Nomination Hearing, G-50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 2:30 pm ET (check committee’s website to verify this is still on)  Webcast

Tuesday-Thursday (July 18-20)

• NASA Exploration Forum, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Wednesday, July 19

• NASA Advisory Council STEM Task Force, teleconference, 2:15 – 4:30 pm ET (WebEx/telecon)

Wednesday-Thursday, July 19-20

• NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (WebEx/telecon)

Thursday, July 20

• NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, NASA HQ, Washington, DC, public session 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET (audio available remotely)