What's Happening in Space Policy May 22-27, 2017 – UPDATE

Here is our list of space policy events for the week of May 22-27, 2017 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in session this week. [Updated with more information about Tuesday’s contingency ISS spacewalk].

During the Week

The BIG EVENT this week is release of President Trump’s complete FY2018 budget request, which will formally kick off debate thereon more than three months late.  Presidents are supposed to submit their annual budget requests to Congress by the first Monday in February, though the first year of a new President’s term is almost always an exception.  Trump sent a “budget blueprint” or “skinny budget” with the broad outlines of his proposal in March. (NASA and NOAA fared pretty well all things considered and defense spending overall would get a big boost.)  Without the details, though, the appropriations committees couldn’t get started on hearings and deliberations.  

That will change on Tuesday when the complete budget is expected to be submitted.  Remember — only Congress has the power of the purse. The President PROPOSES a budget, but only Congress decides how much money will be spent and on what. They are supposed to conclude their budget work by September 30 so the new budget is in place by the beginning of the next fiscal year on October 1, but that rarely happens.  For this year (FY2017), they finally got the budget done on May 5, seven months late.  Considering that this budget request isn’t even being submitted until May 23, the chances of bills passing by September 30 are virtually non-existent.  Not to mention that quite a few Republicans and Democrats said the Trump budget was “dead on arrival” because of its substantial cuts to agencies like the State Department, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  It’ll be another long budget debate complete with shutdown threats — which already have been issued not only by Democrats, but the President himself who tweeted on May 2 that the country needs a “good ‘shutdown’ in September.”  Hang onto your hats.

A Washington think tank, the Third Way, got a leaked copy of an Excel spreadsheet with the budget request numbers for budget accounts throughout the government and posted it on its website.  There’s still not enough detail to know what the Administration has in mind for DOD or NOAA space activities, but the budget account breakdown for NASA is there. In the order presented in that spreadsheet (which is different from how NASA usually lists it):  

• Space Operations – $4,740.8 million;
• Science –  $5,711.8 million;
• Safety, Security and Mission Services – $2,830.2 million;
• Exploration – $3,934.1 million;
• Aeronautics – $624 million;
• Education – $37.3 million;
• Construction and Environmental Compliance – $496.1 million;
• Space Technology – $678.6 million.

That adds up to $19,052.9 million, which would round to the $19.1 billion advertised in the budget blueprint.  It’s significantly lower than the $19.65 billion Congress appropriated for FY2017.  The Administration proposed eliminating NASA’s Office of Education so it will be interesting to see what the $37.3 million is for. That’s roughly how much money is in the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) budget for its education-related activities, so perhaps it is being moved into the Education budget account instead of Science.  We should know on Tuesday.   DOD and NASA usually hold public budget briefings the day the budget is submitted, but we haven’t seen any announcements of those briefings yet. We’ll post any information we get.

The House Appropriations Committee will hold a hearing on the FY2018 request for the Department of Commerce on Thursday,  It will cover all of the department’s activities, of which NOAA is only one part.  Might be interesting, though.

The Senate Commerce space subcommittee will hold a non-budget related hearing on Tuesday.  It will hear testimony from two panels of witnesses on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and whether it needs to be modified to reflect all that has changed in the intervening 50 years.  Witnesses include space lawyers and representatives of companies affected by the treaty’s provisions.

On Thursday, the annual International Space Development Conference (ISDC) gets underway in St. Louis.   On Friday, NASA will have a briefing on what’s going up to the International Space Station (ISS) on the next SpaceX cargo mission, SpX-11. The launch itself is scheduled for June 1.

One of the two mulitplexer-demultiplexer (MDM) data relay boxes on the ISS failed yesterday.  The crew is fine, but NASA wants to replace it sooner rather than later.  It announced today (Sunday) that a contingency spacewalk will take place no earlier than Tuesday.   A final decision on when and which astronauts will conduct the spacewalk is expected later today.  Peggy Whitson, currently in command of the ISS, surely will be one of the two. It would be her 10th spacewalk.  The question is whether her partner will be NASA’s Jack Fischer or ESA’s Thomas Pesquet.  We’ll post more information when it becomes available. [UPDATE:  Whitson and Fischer will conduct the spacewalk on Tuesday, May 23, beginning about 8:00 am ET.  NASA TV coverage begins 6:30 am ET.]

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday afternoon are shown below.  Check back throughout the week for others we learn about later and add to our Events of Interest list.

Tuesday, May 23

• Release of President Trump’s Complete FY2018 Budget Request, time TBA
• International Space Station Spacewalk to replace failed MDM (Whitson/Fischer), ~8:00 am ET (NASA TV coverage begins 6:30 am ET)
• RFF Webinar on Understanding Benefits of Observing Earth from Space, virtual, 1:30-2:30 pm ET
• Senate Commerce Sbcmte Hearing on Outer Space Treaty, 253 Russell Senate Office Building, 2:30 pm ET (webcast)
• AIAA National Capital Section Honors and Awards Banquet, Lockheed Martin Global Vision Center, Arlington, VA, 6;30 pm ET

Tuesday-Wednesday, May 23-24

• Latin American Satellite Communications and Broadcasting Summit (LatSat), Mexico City, Mexico

Tuesday-Thursday, May 23-25

• SpaceTech Expo USA, Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, CA

Thursday, May 25

• ZeroG Summit: Space Diplomacy in Age of NewSpace (Space Trust/CSF), 2043 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, 8:00-9:30 am ET
• House Appropriations CJS Sbcmt Hearing on FY2018 Budget Request for Dept of Commerce, H-309 Capitol, Washington, DC, 10:30 am ET (webcast)
• NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, 10:30 – 11:45 am ET (9:30-10:45 am Central), audio available remotely
• WSBR Luncheon Panel on In-Flight Connectivity, Hogan Lovells law offices, 555 13th St., NW, Washington, DC, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Thursday-Monday, May 25-29

• International Space Development Conference (ISDC) 2017, St. Louis Union Station Hotel, St. Louis, MO

Friday, May 26

• NASA Media Telecon Re Cargo on Upcoming SpX-11 Mission, virtual, 10:00 am ET (audiocast)

Correction: The Space Diplomacy event on Thursday is in 2043 Rayburn, not 2062 as we originally posted.