What’s Happening in Space Policy June 18-24, 2017

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will begin marking up the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week.  Most military space programs are under the jurisdiction of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.  Its markup is on Thursday morning.  Across Capitol Hill, Senate defense appropriators will begin drilling down into the budget requests from the three services.  They heard from Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford last week about the broad scope of funding issues facing DOD.  This Wednesday they will hear from Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson and Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein specifically about Air Force needs.  Most military space programs are in the Air Force budget and Wilson is the Principal DOD Space Advisor.  Separately, Dunford will give a luncheon address at the National Press Club tomorrow (Monday) and Gen. John Hyten, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, will talk about space, nuclear and missile defense modernization Tuesday morning as part of the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute space breakfast series (one must register in advance to attend).

On the space science front, NASA will hold a briefing tomorrow (Monday) at NASA’s Ames Research Center on recent discoveries from the exoplanet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope.  The briefing is in conjunction with the fourth Kepler Science Conference taking place there all week.  

Back here in Washington, NASA is sponsoring back-to-back briefings on Wednesday about the upcoming solar eclipse.  On August 21, for the first time in 99 years, a total solar eclipse will pass over the United States.  The total eclipse will be visible in 14 states from Oregon to South Carolina.  The rest of North America and parts of South America, Africa and Europe will see a partial eclipse. It is such a rare event that huge traffic jams and other disruptions are expected and it is vitally important that people wear special “eclipse glasses” to look at the sun.  NOT sunglasses.  You need eclipse glasses.  They are inexpensive and readily available from many retailers as a quick look on Amazon.com will reveal.  NASA has arranged these briefings two months before the eclipse so people have plenty of time to get prepared.  The first Wednesday briefing is on logistics and the second is on the science of solar eclipses.  They will take place at the Newseum in Washington and broadcast on NASA TV.

The space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will hold a third hearing on commercial space issues on Wednesday (unfortunately at the same time as the NASA eclipse briefings as well as a very interesting CSIS seminar on “Small Satellites, Big Missions”).  Subcommittee chairman Ted Cruz is holding a series of hearings under the rubric “Reopening the American Frontier.”  The first two were on April 26 and May 23.  This one is focusing on partnerships between the government and the private sector.  Bob Cabana, director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), is the lone government witness.  He has been leading the conversion of KSC from a NASA center to a multi-user spaceport populated almost as much by other government agencies and private sector companies as by NASA itself.  Joining him at the witness table will be Gwynne Shotwell from SpaceX (which leases KSC’s iconic Launch Complex 39A from NASA), Jeff Manber from Nanoracks (which arranges to send cubesats to the International Space Station for deployment into orbit), Moriba Jah from the University of Texas at Austin (an expert on space situational awareness), and Tim Ellis from Relativity (a company whose website says it is “reimagining the way orbital rockets are built and flown”).

This is also Paris Air Show week with the venerable event taking place as usual at Le Bourget outside Paris, France.

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 Events of Interest list.

Sunday, June 18

• Exoplanets Exploration Program Analysis Group (EXOPAG), Hilton Garden Inn Mountain View, Mountain View, CA, 9:00 am 6:00 pm Pacific Time (Adobe Connect)

Monday, June 19

• NASA Briefing on New Kepler Exoplanet Findings, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, 11:00 am ET (8:00 am Pacific), Watch on NASA Live
• Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Speaks at the National Press Club, 14th and F Streets, NW, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm ET

Monday-Friday, June 19-23

• Kepler and K2 Science Conference IV (SciConIV), NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA (Adobe Connect)

Monday-Sunday, June 19-25

• Paris Air Show, Le Bourget, France

Tuesday, June 20

• Space, Nuclear and Missile Defense Modernization speech by Gen. John Hyten (AFA Mitchell Institute), Capitol Hill Club, 300 1st St., SE, Washington,DC, 8:00 pm ET (pre-registration required)
• MSBR Luncheon Featuring Michael Farrar of the National Weather Service, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, June 20-22

• Earth Observation Summit (EO 2017), Université du Québec à Montréal science center, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
• National Academies Committee on Mid-Term Review of Decadal Survey on Life and Physical Sciences at NASA, Jonsson Center, Woods Hole, MA (only two sessions of the meeting are open — on Tuesday afternoon; the rest of the meeting is closed)

Wednesday, June 21

• Senate Appropriations Defense Sbcmt Hrg on FY2018 Air Force Budget Request, 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 10:30 am ET (webcast)
• NASA Briefings on Upcoming Solar Eclipse, Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC (NASA TV)
  • 1:00-2:00 pm ET, Logistics
  • 2:30-3:30 pm ET, Science
• Small Satellites, Big Missions (CSIS), CSIS, 1616 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 2:00-4:30 pm ET (webcast)
• Senate Commerce Sbcmt Hearing on Commercial Space Partnerships, 253 Russell Senate Office Building, 2:30 pm ET (webcast)

Thursday, June 22

• HASC Strategic Forces Sbcmt Markup FY2018 NDAA, 2118 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:30 am ET (webcast)
• NSF-NASA-DOE Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, virtual, 12:00-4:00 pm ET (telecon)

Thursday-Friday, June 22-23

•  NASA Advisory Council Big Data Task Force, virtual, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm ET both days (WebEx/telecon)