What’s Happening in Space Policy March 23-29, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of March 23-29, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

Congress is back after a week-long break, the Senate’s first since the beginning of the year. They’ve been very busy confirming President Trump’s choices for top-level positions in his second administration and all but one of the Cabinet-level nominees are through.

The only one still waiting is Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as U.N. Ambassador. That’s because she’s a member of the House and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) needs her vote on bills like the Continuing Resolution that barely got through two weeks ago 217-213. She’s expected to resign and proceed with the confirmation process as soon as replacements for two former Florida Republican Congressmen, Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, are in place. That election is April 1.

Many non-Cabinet nominees still need to be confirmed, however, and the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) will take up Troy Meink’s nomination to be Secretary of the Air Force on Thursday. He’s one of four nominees for DOD positions who will testify that day. Meink has a long career in national security space and currently is Principal Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office.  Some in the space community are cheering that a person with deep knowledge of the role space plays in national security will be in such a high level position, but others are concerned about allegations that he steered an important contract to SpaceX.  Two SASC members, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-NY) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), sent a letter to Meink asking about those allegations. The matter almost certainly will come up at the hearing.

As a reminder, the Department of the Air Force is the parent organization of both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force.

The previous day (Wednesday), SASC’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee will hold a hearing with the Commanders of U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Space Command to find out what their top priorities are for Congress to address in the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). USSTRATCOM’s Gen. Anthony Cotton and USSPACECOM’s Gen. Stephen Whiting are the witnesses.

SASC Chairman Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and his House counterpart HASC Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) issued a joint statement last week expressing concern about reports the Trump Administration “might soon change is entire combatant command structure, withdraw from NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) command structure, and cancel modernization plans for U.S. Forces Japan.” This hearing might well delve into those issues.

As a reminder, U.S. Space Command is one of the 11 Unified Combatant Commands, whereas the U.S. Space Force is one of the six military services.  (It’s confusing, we know.)

On the other side of the Hill, the House will take up eight bills from the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee under suspension of the rules tomorrow (Monday).  Two are space-related: H.R. 1325, Commercial Remote Sensing Amendment Act of 2025 (Lucas/Lofgren) and H.R. 1368, DOE and NASA Interagency Research Coordination Act (Begich).

House SS&T hasn’t taken any action on the bills this year, but both are being reintroduced from previous Congresses where they passed the House, but no action was taken in the Senate.

The commercial remote sensing bill, H.R. 1325, was H.R. 290 in the 118th Congress and H.R. 6845 in the 117th Congress. To align the law with the revised commercial remote sensing regulations issued in 2020, it would reduce from 120 days to 60 days how long the Department of Commerce (DOC) gets to decide on applications for commercial remote sensing satellites. It also renews a requirement, which expired in 2020, that DOC annually inform Congress of the status of commercial remote sensing applications, regulations, and adjudications. This bill would reinstate it through 2030.

The DOE-NASA coordination bill, H.R. 1368, was H.R. 2988 in the 118th Congress. It formally authorizes NASA and the Department of Energy to continue their long-time collaboration in R&D that supports mission requirements of both agencies and requires them to do so consistent with the research security provisions of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. Similar bills encouraging cooperation between DOE and two other agencies, USDA and NSF, also will be considered Monday.

A Hill-related event will take place tomorrow evening. The Planetary Society is holding a discussion on “The Future of Space Politics” in D.C.  It follows the society’s Day of Action on Capitol Hill where its members advocate for planetary science. The society’s Chief of Space Policy, Casey Dreier, has been raising a warning flag about a potential cut of 50 percent to NASA’s science budget.

The society is headquartered near JPL in Pasadena, CA and two of the area’s Members of Congress will participate — Rep. Judy Chu  (D-CA) and Rep. George Whitesides (D-CA). Chu chairs the Congressional Planetary Science Caucus. Whitesides is a former NASA Chief of Staff and former CEO of Virgin Galactic and now is Vice Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.  Joining them are the society’s CEO Bill Nye, and the chief scientist of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, Nancy Chabot. The event is a live recording of the society’s podcast, Planetary Radio.

On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission’s monthly open meeting includes consideration of a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on specific actions that can be taken to develop complements and alternatives to GPS. Concern about the vulnerability of GPS to jamming and spoofing is growing along with the world’s dependence on it. GPS was developed and is owned and operated by DOD, which makes signals available to the public for free (it has other signals only the military can use). DOD has long recognized the need for other “positioning, navigation and timing” or PNT systems, but progress is slow. Looks like the FCC is interested in finding out what the commercial sector could do. The FCC has greatly broadened its interest in space in recent years, well beyond its traditional role of issuing radio frequency licenses to non-government satellite operators.

Later on Thursday, the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute (SPI) will hold their annual seminar in D.C. This year the topic is “AI for Space and Aeronautics (Research and Development for Evolving Missions).” Following the Frederick A. Tarantino Memorial Lecture — presented by John Platt, Google Fellow, Climate and Science — three panels will discuss AI for Scientific Discovery, AI for Space and Aeronautics, and International Commercial Trends in AI.  It’ll be livestreamed, but you have to register to get the link.

Too many other great events this week to highlight them all, but we’ll briefly mention the Mitchell Institute’s webinar on Wednesday with U. S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman. Saltzman reportedly barred Space Force personnel from participating in Mitchell Institute events last month after they published a report critical of his “Competitive Endurance” strategy. Apparently they’ve worked something out.

And Space News is having a pair of webinars on hypersonics. Tomorrow, Senior Staff Writer Sandra Erwin will interview Mark Lewis of the Purdue Applied Research Institute on “The Hypersonics Revolution” and Thursday a panel will discuss “Tracking Hypersonic Missiles” with space-based systems.

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, March 24

• Intuitive Machines 4th Quarter 2024 and Full Year 2024 Financial Results, virtual, 8:30 am ET
• The Hypersonics Revolution — Conversation with Mark Lewis (Space News), virtual, 1:00 pm ET
• Future of Space Politics (The Planetary Society), Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center Theater, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 7:00-8:30 pm ET

Tuesday, March 25

• Space Day Texas, Texas State Capitol, Austin, TX, 9:00 am-5:00 pm CENTRAL Time

Tuesday-Thursday, March 25-27

• Space Beach Law Lab, aboard the Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA

Wednesday, March 26

• SASC Hearing on U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Space Command, SD-106 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET (webcast)
• Schriever Spacepower Series Webinar with U.S. Space Force CSO Gen. B. Chance Saltzman (Mitchell Inst), virtual, 10:00 am ET  [UPDATE, Mitchell Institute changed the time to 2:00 pm, but later changed it back to 10:00 am ET]
• ISU-DC Space Café with New Zealand Space Agency Head Marta Mager, 1020 N. Highland St., Arlington, VA, 6:00-8:00 pm ET

Thursday, March 27

• SASC Nomination Hearing for Troy Meink to be Secretary of the Air Force, SD-G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building, 9:30 am ET (webcast)
• FCC Open Commission Meeting Incl NOI on Alternatives to GPS, 45 L St., NE, Washington, DC, 10:30 am-12:30 pm ET (webcast)
• AI for Space and Aeronautics (USRA/SPI), Holiday Inn Washington Capital, 550 C St., SW, Washington, DC, 1:00-5:30 pm ET (livestreamed)
• Tracking Hypersonic Missiles (Space News), virtual, 1:00-2:00 pm ET

Thursday-Friday, March 27-28

• Space Sustainability: Bridging Initiatives and Perspectives (SWF et al), Lausanne, Switzerland

Friday, March 28

• Departure of NG-21 Cargo Ship from the ISS, Earth orbit, 6:55 am ET (NASA+ begins 6:30 am ET)