What’s Happening in Space Policy July 19-26, 2026

What’s Happening in Space Policy July 19-26, 2026

By Marcia Smith | Posted: July 19, 2026 5:17 pm ET | Last Updated: July 20, 2026 8:19 am ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week plus a day of July 19-26, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

It’s a really busy week on and off the Hill. We’re including an extra day because the Soyuz MS-28 crew is scheduled to return to Earth very early next Sunday before we publish our next edition.

Tomorrow (Monday) was already a day to celebrate two special anniversaries —  the 57th of Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon in 1969 and the 50th of Viking 1’s landing on Mars in 1976. Then SpaceX set it as the possible (“as early as”) date to retry the Starship IFT-13 launch. [The date has slipped to July 23.]

Let’s start with the Apollo 11 anniversary, designated by the United Nations as International Moon Day. On July 20, 1969, the United States became the first country to land humans on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, with Mike Collins orbiting overhead.

NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, July 20, 1969, with his helmet reflecting the lunar lander, Eagle, and Neil Armstrong, who took the photo. The lander’s leg is in the lower right. Image credit: NASA

The United States is, and always will be, first on the Moon. There’s a lot of messaging these days about how “it matters” who is first on the Moon. That’s correct, it does matter and we did it, not just once, but six times between 1969 and 1972.

Starship is an important component of getting Americans back on the Moon. NASA contracted with SpaceX in 2021 to build a Human Landing System version of Starship to ferry astronauts between lunar orbit and the lunar surface. Starship’s development is taking longer than expected and it hasn’t reached earth orbit yet. The 13th Integrated Flight Test, or IFT-13, is another suborbital test, but a step along that path. The first attempt on Thursday scrubbed because several of the 33 engines on the Super Heavy first stage didn’t fire, but it’s taking just a matter of days for them to get ready to try again. As of this afternoon, SpaceX’s website says that will be “as early as” tomorrow. The same 90-minute launch window opens at 6:45 pm ET.  Launch dates are always fluid. If it changes, we’ll post an update on our Calendar. [UPDATE: Less than hour after we posted this, they did in fact change the date. Now it’s Thursday, July 23. ]

Tomorrow is also the 50th anniversary of Viking 1 landing on Mars, the first time the United States landed a spacecraft on another planet. It was one of a pair of spacecraft along with Viking 2 that landed two months later. Both were combination orbiters and landers. The Viking 1 orbiter operated until August 1980 and the lander until November 1982.  The Viking 2 orbiter operated through July 1978 and the lander until April 1980. With all of the amazing images that have been sent back from more recent missions like Curiosity and Perseverance, it’s easy to forget how historic the Viking missions were and what it was like to see the first panorama of the Martian surface. Unforgettable for those lucky enough to watch live as the images appeared 50 years ago.

This is the first panoramic view ever returned from the surface of Mars. This view from Camera 2 on Viking 1 shows Chryse Planitia on 20 July 1976, shortly after Viking landed. Credit: NASA

Lockheed Martin is sponsoring an event in Denver to celebrate the anniversary at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum tomorrow morning (local time). The Viking landers were built in Denver by Martin Marietta (before it merged with Lockheed).  Space journalist Leonard David will moderate a panel with four current or retired Lockheed Martin experts: Ben Clark, Jim Crockett, Dave Gingerich, and Richard Warwick.

If you’re in D.C., The Planetary Society, Johns Hopkins University, the National Air and Space Museum, and Space News, in conjunction with the Congressional Planetary Science Caucus, will have an event tomorrow afternoon in the Cannon building on Capitol Hill. The public is invited. Be sure to allow enough time to get through the Capitol Hill security screening process.

Capitol Hill will be busy as the House gets ready to leave for the summer recess at the end of the week.  House Speaker Mike Johnson has a long list of legislation he’s hoping to get across the finish line including the FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Rules Committee meets tomorrow to decide what amendments are in order and other rules that will govern debate. They did it two weeks ago, but the NDAA got entangled with other legislation that was controversial and everything stalled. The NDAA itself is controversial in part because many Democrats, in particular, don’t agree with the historic $1.1 trillion funding level and the lack of limits on hostilities in Iran without congressional approval.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) has introduced a Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded through December 4, 2026. The House may consider it this week.

Authorization bills don’t provide any money, of course, only appropriators have money to spend and speaking of appropriators, House Appropriations Committee chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) is getting a head start on a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government operating when FY2027 begins on October 1.  Knowing that passing all 12 appropriations bills by September 30 is virtually impossible, and wanting to avoid another lengthy shutdown like last year (43 days), he’s introduced a “clean and straightforward” CR to keep the government open through December 4. That’s also on the docket this week subject to a rule being granted.

The House has passed three of the 12 FY2027 bills (Agriculture, MilCon-VA, and National Security-State) and the other nine have been reported from committee. By contrast, none have cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee in part due to the continued absence of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for health reasons. Expecting votes along party lines, and with only a one-vote margin, all Republicans need to be present for any of the bills to pass. McConnell chairs the defense subcommittee, but on Tuesday they’re going ahead with a full committee hearing on the supplemental request sent to Congress on June 24. The $87.6 billion request includes $67.1 billion for defense of which $4 billion is for the Space Force.

Some of the other committee members won’t be there either. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), who chairs the Commerce-Justice-Science subcommittee that funds NASA, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) are again leading a bipartisan delegation to the U.K.’s Farnborough International Airshow and the Aerospace Global Forum that takes place alongside it. They and several other members of Congress will be there to help “showcase American innovation, highlight the capabilities of our talented workforce and strengthen partnerships with allies and industry leaders from across the world,” according to Moran.

Closer to home, Explore Mars holds its annual summit Tuesday-Thursday. Humans to the Moon and Mars (H2M2) is in Houston for the first time this year, instead of D.C.  It’s taking place at Rice University, the venue for President Kennedy’s historic “we choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard” speech in 1962.  Explore Mars originally focused on human Mars exploration, but expanded to the Moon in recent years. The event nicely connects the dots between NASA’s Artemis lunar program and the longer term goal of putting astronauts on Mars, as well as highlighting the need to support NASA’s science program. A virtual option is available for a fee.

As always, there are lots of other great events including a day-long discussion on “Securing Space and Protecting Our World: Cyber Security Across Space and Terrestrial Systems” sponsored by GW’s Space Policy Institute and the Aerospace Corporation on Tuesday in D.C. (livestreamed), and the annual NASA Exploration Science Forum (NESF) at NASA Ames Tuesday-Thursday (virtual option available).

The grand finale will be on Saturday and Sunday when the Soyuz MS-28 crew returns to Earth after 8 months on the ISS. NASA hasn’t posted the timeline, but other sources say Roscosmos’s Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev and NASA’s Chris Williams will undock on Sunday morning at 3:40 am ET and land in Kazakhstan about 6:30 am ET. The day before, Kud-Sverchkov will turn command of the ISS over to NASA’s Jessica Meir at a 9:40 am ET ceremony that NASA will air on NASA+.  Soyuz MS-28’s replacements on Soyuz MS-29 arrived last Tuesday.

The Soyuz MS-28 crew will return to Earth early on Sunday. L-R: Chris Williams (NASA), Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (Roscosmos), Sergei Mikaev (Roscosmos). Photo credit: NASA

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, July 20

Monday-Friday, July 20-24

Tuesday, July 21

Tuesday-Thursday, July 21-23

Wednesday, July 22

Wednesday-Thursday, July 22-23

Thursday, July 23

Saturday, July 25

Sunday, July 26

  • Soyuz MS-28 Return to Earth (details from NASA yet to come, but other sources say undocking 3:40 am ET, landing in Kazakhstan about 6:30 am ET)

This article has been updated.

Last Updated: Jul 20, 2026 8:19 am ET

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