What’s Happening in Space Policy May 17-23, 2026

Here is SpacepolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of May 17-23, 2026 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session for all or part of the week.

During the Week

Last week we noted that SpaceX’s first launch of the new version of Starship was coming up soon, but the company hadn’t announced a target date. Now they have. A few days ago they said it would be Tuesday, May 19, but as of this moment (3:00 pm ET) the banner for the Watch Starship’s Twelfth Flight Test page on SpaceX’s website shows May 20 even if the text still says May 19.

SpaceX promises “excitement guaranteed” for all the Starship flight tests and that certainly rings true this time because it’s the first flight of Version 3, or V3, with significant upgrades especially to the Raptor engines. A lot of testing has taken place already, but it wouldn’t be surprising if more launch date fine-tuning is needed. For now, the hour-and-a-half launch window opens on Wednesday at 6:30 pm EASTERN Time. The SpaceX webcast begins 45 minutes pre-launch. Check SpaceX’s website or our Calendar for updates.

SpaceX has a handy summary of the changes they’ve made for this third generation vehicle. As a reminder, the vehicle has two stages, Super Heavy and Starship, even though the whole thing is often just referred to as Starship. Super Heavy, or “booster,” has 33 Raptor engines to get the vehicle off the launch pad and on its way. Starship, or “Ship,” is the second stage, with 6 Raptor engines, that separates from the booster after about two-and-a-half minutes and continues on to whatever destination it has. Booster comes back to either splash down in the Gulf or return to the launch pad for a “catch” where it maneuvers itself into the arms of “chopsticks” extending from the launch tower. SpaceX has caught boosters three times so far and it’s amazing to watch. For this first flight of V3, which is also the first flight from SpaceX’s new launch pad at Starbase, however, they’re sticking with a Gulf splashdown.

It’ll be hard to top that this week, but there are other important and interesting events.

On Capitol Hill, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will hold a hearing on Wednesday on the FY2027 budget request for the Department of the Air Force, which includes the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force. Witnesses are Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, and Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman. DOD is requesting a record $1.5 trillion for FY2027. As part of that, the Space Force’s budget would almost double from about $40 billion in FY2026 to $71 billion in FY2027. The FY2026 money includes funding that was provided through last summer’s One, Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), also called the reconciliation bill, and $12 billion of the $71 billion is envisoned as coming from a reconciliation bill later this year. Not everyone on the Hill is enamored of what would be a third reconciliation bill (OBBBA was first and they are working on a second to fund ICE and CBP), so that portion of the money is more iffy than the rest.

Off the Hill, the BIG EVENT (other than Starship) this week is the ASCEND (Accelerating Space Commerce, Exploration, and New Discovery) conference. This year marks a turning point for AIAA’s conference, now in its sixth year. AIAA is teaming with the International Space Station National Lab (ISSNL), the Commercial Space Federation, and others for an extravaganza in Washington, DC rather than its previous locale in Las Vegas. Government support for ISSNL’s annual ISS Research and Development (ISSRDC) conference organized by the American Astronautical Society, and the annual FAA Commercial Space Conference organized by the Commercial Space Federation, was curtailed last year and both found a way to continue thanks to AIAA.

It kicks off bright and early (8:00 am ET) Tuesday morning with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. He’s just one of many headliners and there are dozens upon dozens of great sessions, plus the Exhibit Hall. Really looks splendid. In-person only as far as we can tell.

CSIS and the Secure World Foundation will hold a joint webinar on Friday afternoon to discuss their complementary counterspace reports. CSIS’s Space Threat Assessment and SWF’s Global Counterspace Capabilities: An Open Source Assesment both look at security threats to space activities, but through somewhat different lenses. CSIS’s 2026 report isn’t available as of today, but SWF released theirs last month adding Germany to the list of countries pursuing counterspace capabilities. SWF stresses that so far “only non-destructive capabilities are actively being used against satellites in military operations.”

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.

Sunday-Friday, May 17-22

• Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon), Madison, WI

Tuesday, May 19

• Space Industry Forum 2026 (GSOA/Novaspace), Singapore

Tuesday-Thursday, May 19-21

• ASCEND (AIAA et al), Washington, DC

Wednesday, May 20

• HASC Hearing on FY2027 Dept of the Air Force (Air Force/Space Force) Budget Request, 2118 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• NASA SMD Heliophysics Division Virtual Community Meeting, virtual, 11:00 am ET
• MSBR Luncheon with Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Victor Hall, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt MD, 11:30 am-1:00 pm ET
• Starship Integrated Flight Test-12 (IFT-12), Starbase, TX, launch window opens 6:30 pm ET (livestreamed)

Friday, May 22

• Military Human Spaceflight: Key Component to American Space Superiority (Mitchell Inst), virtual, 10:00 am ET
• What Are the Biggest Threats in Space? (CSIS/SWF), virtual, 1:00-2:00 pm ET