What’s Happening in Space Policy June 15-21, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 15-21, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House is in recess this week. The Senate is in session Monday-Wednesday.

During the Week

The Juneteenth federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States is on Thursday, June 19.  The House is taking the entire week off. The Senate is meeting Monday-Wednesday and then will be out on Thursday and Friday.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine will finish their round of FY2026 budget hearings before DOD’s authorization and appropriations committees on Wednesday at the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). A common theme throughout the first three hearings last week (House and Senate appropriations, House Armed Services) is that Congress is very unhappy that the Trump Administration hasn’t submitted the detailed DOD budget request and they have to work with a tiny fraction of the information they usually have. That didn’t stop the House Appropriations Committee from marking up the DOD bill on Thursday, but they were clear a lot is being left for negotiation with the Senate later on. Senate appropriations is going to wait until the reconciliation bill is enacted so everyone will have a better idea of how much money DOD is getting there. Most Republicans and Democrats on the committees seem to think DOD needs more than what’s in the budget request and reconciliation act combined.

Apart from that the Hill is quiet this week on space-related matters, but there’s lots going on elsewhere, including overseas.

The 55th Paris Air Show is taking place at Le Bourget, outside Paris, all week. The Air India tragedy plus the ongoing war in Ukraine and the Israel-Iran conflict may cast a pall over the usually celebratory event, but it is still a place where deals are made. Over 320 American companies are expected to participate along with representatives of almost two dozen states. Most of it will be about aviation, but we’ll be keeping an eye out for space-related news.The European Space Agency (ESA) will be there celebrating its 50th anniversary.  A joint press conference with the French space agency CNES will take place tomorrow (Monday) and on Wednesday ESA will have another one with the European Union’s Commissioner for Defence and Space. Both will be broadcast on ESA Web TV.  We haven’t heard of anything special NASA is doing, although some NASA employees are being allowed to attend.

The National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference, ISDC, starts on Thursday and runs through Sunday in Orlando.  Among the impressive list of dinner speakers is Jared Isaacman whom many had hoped would be NASA’s next Administrator until President Trump abruptly withdrew his nomination two weeks ago. (No official word yet on who will replace him.)  He’ll speak on Saturday. The other nights feature NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Nicky Fox (Thursday),  former NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green (Friday), and on Sunday, former NASA and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson and former NASA astronaut Story Musgrave. The daily sessions have terrific speaker line-ups as well. Unfortunately there’s no indication of a virtual option.

Two launches delayed from last week are back on this schedule this week.

ULA’s Atlas V launch of the next 27 Amazon Project Kuiper communications satellites is on track for tomorrow at 1:25 pm ET, the opening of a 30 minute window. ULA says the weather forecast is 75 percent “go.” That’ll be webcast by ULA.

The other is the launch of Axiom-4 with its four-person private astronaut crew.  NASA, Axiom and SpaceX haven’t definitively set the launch for Thursday, but that’s the “no earlier than” date.  The launch was delayed by weather from June 10 to June 11, and then from June 11 to 12 so SpaceX could fix a liquid oxygen leak on the Falcon 9 rocket.  One of the astronauts on this flight is from India and the Indian space agency has its own account of what happened with SpaceX’s response to that LOX leak. We’ve asked SpaceX for comment, but haven’t received a reply as of press time.  Then NASA postponed the launch because it said it wanted to perform tests to determine the success of recent repairs to stop air leaks from a tunnel in the Russian segment. The tunnel now is holding pressure for the first time in a long time. That good news, but NASA said it wants to make sure there’s no leak around the seal from the main part of the space station into the tunnel.

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, June 16

• ESA-CNES Press Conference at the Paris Air Show, Le Bourget, FR, 9:00 am ET (15:00 CEST), webcast on ESA TV
• WSBR Luncheon with the FCC’s Jay Schwarz, Hogan Lovells, 555 13th St, NW, Washington, DC, 12:00-1:30 pm ET
• ULA Launch of Amazon Project Kuiper Satellites, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL, 1:25 pm ET, webcast by ULA

Monday-Wednesday, June 16-18

• Milsatcom USA (SAE Media Group), Arlington, VA

Monday-Sunday, June 16-22

• 55th International Paris Air Show, Le Bourget, France

Tuesday, June 17

• Exploring Europa with Europa Clipper (LPI), Houston, TX/online, 8:30 pm ET

Wednesday, June 18

• ESA-EU Press Conference at the Paris Air Show, Le Bourget, FR, 5:30 am ET (11:30 am CEST), webcast on ESA TV
• Space Threats and Acquisition Forum (NSSA), Herndon, VA, 8:00 am-5:15 pm ET (classified)
• SASC Hearing on  FY2026 DOD Budget Request, SD-G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET (webcast)
• MSBR Luncheon with NRO Director Chris Scolese, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am-1:00 pm ET

Thursday, June 19

• Juneteenth National Independence Day (Federal Holiday)
• TENTATIVE Rescheduled Launch of Axiom-4 Private Astronaut Mission to the International Space Station, details TBA
• International Virtual Workshop on Interoperability and Lunar Activities Database (LSIC et al), virtual, 9:00 am ET

Thursday-Sunday, June 19-22

• 43rd ISDC-International Space Development Conference (NSS), Orlando, FL

Saturday-Friday, June 21-27

• International Planetary Probe Workshop, Stuttgart, Germany