What’s Happening in Space Policy May 11-17, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of May 11-17, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The House and Senate are focused on trying to find a way forward on the reconciliation package that will advance President Trump’s agenda of extending his 2017 tax cuts, creating new tax cuts, increasing spending on defense, border security, and energy, and cutting spending for most other government programs to compensate. Divisions within the Republican party over cuts to Medicaid and whether to raise or eliminate the ceiling on State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions are slowing progress in the House. The bill is also expected to deal with the debt limit, which puts a time limit on passage. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress two days ago that they need to raise or suspend the debt limit by mid-July to avoid a government default. The end result likely will affect government spending on space activities, but the reconciliation debate is largely outside the scope of this website, so we won’t spend more time on it other than to say that it’s consuming a lot of Congress’s attention right now.

The Senate continues to consider nominations, however, and this week may move forward on Troy Meink’s nomination to be Secretary of the Air Force. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) took the first step (filing cloture) on Thursday on Meink’s and five other nominations. His name isn’t first on the list, but the vote on his nomination could happen soon.  The Secretary of the Air Force oversees the Department of the Air Force, which comprises two military services — the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force. Meink is currently Principal Deputy Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which designs, builds and launches the nation’s spy satellites, and has spent most of his career in national security space. If confirmed he’ll be the first person with a space background to serve as SecAF.

The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee will vote on the nomination of Paul Dabbar to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce on Wednesday. The Commerce Department includes NOAA, which has been the target of deep cuts by the Trump Administration including to the Office of Space Commerce and NESDIS, which operates the nation’s weather satellites. Dabbar was Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy in the first Trump Administration. During Dabbar’s confirmation hearing on May 1, committee chair Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) praised his nomination, but Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) was highly critical of the Trump-proposed cuts to NOAA.

The Senate and House also are holding many hearings. Two House hearings this week are on space issues.

On Wednesday, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee holds its annual National Security Space hearing with top officials from DOD, NRO, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Air Force Space Acquisition and Integration office. The witnesses are: Andrea Yaffe, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy; Chris Scolese, Director, NRO; Vice Adm. Frank Whitworth, Director, NGA; and Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. These hearings are interesting, but very general since so much of the material is classified. The subcommittee holds a separate classified meeting with them afterwards.

On Thursday, the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing on NASA’s planetary defense strategy. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) is responsible for finding and tracking asteroids and comets that could pose a threat to Earth.  If there’s a greater than 1 percent chance of an impact over the next 50 years, they must notify the White House and relevant government agencies. PDCO is probably best known for developing and implementing the DART mission where a spacecraft impacted a tiny moon of an asteroid in 2022 demonstrating it’s possible to change its trajectory through kinetic impact. PDCO is part of the Science Mission Directorate and SMD Associate Administrator Nicky Fox is one of the witnesses.

She’ll be joined by UCLA’s Amy Mainzer, lead for the NEO Surveyor mission, an infrared space telescope designed specifically to find asteroids 140 meters in diameter or greater as directed by Congress in the 2005 George E. Brown, Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act.  Rep. Brown (D-CA), who passed away in 1999, chaired the House science committee from 1991-1995 and spearheaded the first legislation directing NASA to locate and track asteroids. That law required NASA to find 90 percent of asteroids 1 kilometer or more in diameter within 10 years. NASA did that and in 2005 Congress took the next step, directing the agency to locate and track those 140 meters or more in diameter within 15 years. That’s a lot harder and NASA is still working on it. Asteroids are dark and finding them visually against the darkness of space is a challenge. Using an infrared telescope designed specifically to pick up their heat signatures will make it easier as will having the telescope in space instead of on Earth with a limited field of view. NEO Surveyor is on track to launch in 2027.

Matthew Payne, Director of the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, is the third witness. The Minor Planet Center is the central location for receiving and distributing positional measurements of asteroids and comets (and minor planets). All of its operating funds come from a grant from NASA’s Near-Earth Object Observations program.  It’ll be interesting to get an update with so many government grants being terminated and the White House’s proposal to cut NASA’s science budget in half.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) will hold a webinar on Wednesday, in fact, to talk about NASA’s budget outlook.  CSIS’s Clayton Swope will be joined by Alex MacDonald and Mike French. MacDonald was NASA’s Chief  Economist until the end of last year and is now a non-resident CSIS senior associate. The NASA Chief Economist position was eliminated by the Trump Administration in March. French now has his own space policy consulting firm, but for five years (2019-2024) he was Vice President, Space Systems for the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and was NASA Deputy Chief of Staff and then Chief of Staff under Charlie Bolden (2011-2017). He worked at Bryce Space and Technology in between. Lots of expertise there. Should be interesting.

Among the other great events this week is the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award to Gene Kranz by the American Astronautical Society (AAS) at Space Center Houston on Thursday evening. Kranz is a legendary NASA flight director who worked on missions starting with the Mercury program, but is most famous for leading the flight control team that brought the Apollo 13 crew home safe and sound in 1970. Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert were on their way to the Moon when an explosion in the Apollo Service Module left them with little oxygen, water, or electrical power. Renowned for saying “Failure is Not An Option,” Kranz readily acknowledges he never spoke those exact words — scriptwriters for the 1995 Apollo 13 movie came up with it — but embraced the phrase and used it as the title of his riveting memoir.  On the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, the National Air and Space Museum got Kranz, Lovell and Haise together along with Ken (“T.K.”) Mattingly to talk about those days (Swigert died of cancer in 1982). Mattingly was supposed to be Apollo 13’s Command Module Pilot, but was exposed to the measles just before launch and NASA replaced him with his backup, Swigert, at the last minute. Mattingly later flew on Apollo 16.

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-Friday, May 12-16

• Legal Subcommittee of the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), Vienna, Austria (continued from last week), livestreamed

Tuesday, May 13

• Intuitive Machines First Quarter 2025 Financial Results Telecon, virtual, 8:30 am ET
• 2025 Global Security Forum: Strength Through the Storm (CSIS), virtual, 8:30 am-5:00 pm ET
• SIA Press Bfg and Release of 2025 State of Satellite Industry Report, National Press Club, Washington, DC, 1:30-3:00 pm ET
• Book Launch:  Space to Grow–Unlocking the Final Economic Frontier, George Washington University Space Policy Institute, 1957 E St, N.W., Washington, DC/virtual, 2:00 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, May 13-15

• SATExpo Middle East, Dubai World Trade Center, UAE

Wednesday, May 14

• Senate Commerce Cmte Vote on Paul Dabbar’s Nomination to be Deputy Secretary of Commerce, 9:45 am ET (webcast)
• NASA Budget Outlook (CSIS), virtual, 1:00-200 pm ET
• HASC Sbcmt Hearing on National Security Space, 2212 Rayburn House Office Building, 3:30 pm ET (webcast)

Thursday, May 15

• Politico 2025 Security Summit, Capital Turnaround, 700 M St., S.E., Washington, DC/virtual, 8:00 am-12:30 pm ET (government-issued ID is required for in-person attendance)
• House SS&T Sbcmt Hearing on NASA’s Planetary Defense Strategy, 2318 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• Schriever Spacepower Series Webinar with USSF Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton (Mitchell Inst), virtual, 10:00-11:00 am ET
• Virgin Galactic First Quarter 2025 Financial Results, virtual, 5:00 pm ET
• Lifetime Achievement Award Presented to Gene Kranz (AAS), Space Center Houston, Houston, TX, 5:30-8:30 pm CENTRAL Time

Thursday-Friday, May 15-16

• Space Summit, Embassy Suites Miami International Airport, Miami, FL