What’s Happening in Space Policy June 23-29, 2024

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of June 23-29, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House is in session this week. The Senate is in recess except for pro forma sessions.

During the Week

Last week the Senate was in and the House was out. This week it’s the reverse. The Senate actually is out for two weeks including the July 4 holiday period. The House will meet this week and take next week off.

On Wednesday, the House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) subcommittee will mark up the FY2025 CJS bill that funds NASA and NOAA. Details usually aren’t released until full committee markup, but we all should at least get an idea of the top-line numbers they’re proposing. The CJS members have to decide how much to allocate to NASA, NSF, all of the Department of Commerce of which NOAA is part, and the Department of Justice.

On Thursday, the Transportation-HUD subcommittee will mark up its bill that includes the FAA and its Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). They have to divvy up their money between the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It’s no secret this will be another very tough year for non-defense agencies like all of those with the Fiscal Responsibility Act funding caps still in effect. The FRA dictates only a one percent increase over FY2024 for both defense and non-defense spending. The caps are on total spending, not specifically targeted at any one agency. How the money gets allocated is determined first by the 12 appropriations subcommittees, then the full committee, then the full House. A parallel process takes place in the Senate and the two then have to reach final agreement. It’s a long process.

The House, which typically acts first on appropriations, is making progress, though. It passed the first FY2025 bill already, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, and several have been approved by the full committee including Defense. House leadership plans to bring the Defense bill to the floor this week as well as State-Foreign Ops and Homeland Security. After this week, the House will only be in session six other weeks before FY2024 ends on September 30. Then they are out all of October and through the November elections. Time is running short already, which is why it’s extremely unlikely any FY2025 appropriations bills will be completed before the elections or even by the end of the year.

Off the Hill, the indefinite delay of the return of Boeing’s Starliner Crew Flight Test makes this a quieter week than we anticipated, but there’s still lots going on starting with a spacewalk tomorrow (Monday). NASA astronauts Tracy Dyson and Mike Barratt are setting out to complete the tasks that Dyson and Matt Dominick were supposed to do on June 13. That spacewalk was called off just before they were to exit the airlock because Dominick was experiencing “spacesuit discomfort” — not a good thing when you’re about to be in that spacesuit for more than 6 hours and it’s the only thing keeping you alive. NASA ISS Program Manager Dana Weigel said Barratt is replacing Dominick because they already have a spacesuit ready for him. Three spacewalks were planned, but they’ve cut it down to two. The other one is on July 2. NASA hasn’t said who’ll do that one.

Very early Tuesday, the sample return canister from China’s Chang’e-6 lunar sample return mission is expected to land in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Republic. As usual, China’s official news agency Xinhua isn’t providing any timely information, but those with access to China’s Weibou website are sharing updates. They say the landing is between 1:41 and 2:11 am Eastern Daylight Time (05:41-06:11 UTC).

The return capsule of Chang’e 6 is expected to land at the landing site in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, between UTC 05:41 and 06:11 on June 25th. Source:https://t.co/4sDlbX4C9J pic.twitter.com/2bSgKgcvY4

— CNSA Watcher (@CNSAWatcher) June 20, 2024

China’s CGTN television network often shows live coverage of notable space events so it might broadcast this historic moment — the first return of samples from the far side of the Moon. All the lunar samples brought back so far by Soviet and Chinese robotic probes and U.S. astronauts are from the near side. The far side, which always faces away from Earth (and is no more dark than the near side — they both experience 14 days of sunlight and 14 days of darkness), is quite different geologically based on observations by orbiting spacecraft like NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbit. Scientists are very excited at the possibility of studying actual samples of what’s there. Chang’e-6 was launched on May 3, landed on the far side on June 1, and lifted off on June 3. It rendezvoused with the mother spacecraft in lunar orbit on June 6 and then had to wait until June 20 for the right trajectory to depart lunar orbit and head back to Earth.

If we learn any details about China providing live coverage of Tuesday’s landing, we’ll post it to our Calendar entry.

Later on Tuesday, the U.S. will launch the next NOAA geostationary meteorological satellite, GOES-U. It’s the fourth of four advanced Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites generically referred to as the GOES-R series. NASA procures NOAA’s satellites and the two agencies will hold several briefings and other events on Monday to herald GOES-U.  In particular, it’s the only one of the four to carry a coronagraph to monitor the Sun for outbursts that create “space weather.” Fortunately the solar storm we just had only created amazing auroras and didn’t cause damage to satellites or electric power grids, but that is always a concern and the reason for keeping a close eye on what’s happening on the Sun. NOAA has a nice video with information about GOES-U and its predecessors. Launch is Tuesday afternoon. The two-hour launch window opens at 5:16 pm EDT.

Among the other interesting events this week, also on Tuesday, is a webinar with NASA’s Laura Delgado López who will report on her year-long research as a Visiting Fellow at CSIS studying space policy and politics in Latin America. The lecture will focus on Brazil and Chile. It’s for the British International Studies Association so the time indicated on the website (2:00 pm) is British Summer Time, which is 9:00 am EDT.

On Thursday, the Beyond Earth Institute will have what sounds like a very interesting webinar on “Commercial Market Forecasts: Are They Credible? Who to Believe.” Speakers are Kevin O’Connell, who headed NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce in the Trump Administration (when then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made talk of a trillion dollar space economy commonplace) and is now with Space Economy Rising; Chris Quilty from Quilty Space, a long-time space market analyst; Lesley Conn from the Space Foundation that issues “The Space Report” annually, with quarterly updates, on the space economy; Tina Highfill from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis who co-authored their space economy assessment last year; and George Pullen from MilkyWayEconomy whose website declares that its approach to space investing is straightforward — “Uncle Sam has all the money.” BEI’s Courtney Stadd is the moderator.

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 24

• U.S. Spacewalk at ISS (Dyson/Barratt), 8:00 am ET (NASA coverage begins 6:30 am ET)
• GOES-U Pre-Launch Events (see Calendar entry for details on how to watch on which NASA media outlet)
  • 9:30 am ET: NASA Edge prelaunch show
  • 11:00 am ET: GOES-U science briefing
  • 3:15 pm ET: NASA Social Panel at KSC
  • 5:00 pm ET: Pre-launch news conference
• Schriever Spacepower Series with U.S. Space Command Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting (Mitchell Inst), virtual, 2:00 pm ET

Monday-Tuesday, June 24-25

• European Space Forum: Sustainable Innovation for Global Leadership, Brussels, Belgium
• 1st International Workshop on AI For Space Safety & Sustainability, Glasgow, U.K.

Monday-Friday, June 24-28 (continued from last week)

• U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Vienna, Austria, livestreamed

Tuesday, June 25

• China’s Chang’e-6 Sample Return Canister Lands in Inner Mongolia, 1:41-2:11 am ET
• Space Policy and Politics in Latin America (BISA), virtual, 9:00-10:30 am ET
• STA Luncheon with JSC Director Vanessa Wyche, Capitol Hill (invitation only)
• WSBR Luncheon: Launching the Next Generation of Lift, Hogan Lovells, 555 13th St., NW, Washington, DC, 12:00-1:30 pm ET
• Launch of NOAA’s GOES-U Meteorological Satellite, 5:16 pm ET (NASA coverage begins 4:15 pm ET)

Tuesday-Friday, June 25-28

• Zero Debris Week (ESA), Darmstadt, Germany

Wednesday, June 26

• House Appropriations CJS Subcommittee Markup (incl NASA, NOAA), H-140 Capitol, 8:30 am ET (webcast)
• Inaugural State of Science Address by the President of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences building, 2101 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 3:00-5:00 pm ET (livestreamed)

Wednesday-Thursday, June 26-27

• AWS Summit Washington DC, Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC

Thursday, June 27

• House Appropriations THUD Subcommittee Markup (incl FAA/AST), 2358-A Rayburn House Office Building, 8:30 am ET (webcast)
• Commercial Market Forecasts: Are They Credible? Who to Believe? (Beyond Earth Institute), virtual, 1:00-2:30 pm ET

Friday, June 28

• Natl Acad Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, 3:30-4:15 pm ET (livestreamed)