What’s Happening in Space Policy November 17-24, 2024

What’s Happening in Space Policy November 17-24, 2024

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 17, 2024 3:18 pm ET | Last Updated: November 17, 2024 3:18 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 17-24, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The countdown to the end of the 118th Congress marches on. The House and Senate now have four working weeks left before their scheduled adjournment dates on December 19 and 20 respectively. The Continuing Resolution (CR) that’s keeping the government operating at full strength expires on December 20. No appropriations bills are on the House calendar for this week.

It’s anyone’s guess as to whether they will pass the FY2025 appropriations bills (probably as one or several packages) by then, pass another CR and kick the can down the road into the next Congress and the Trump Administration, or let the departments and agencies funded by those bills (DOD, NASA, etc.) shut down for all but vital operations. During his first term, Trump presided over the longest partial government shutdown ever — 35 days — from December 21, 2018 to January 25, 2019. He’s not in office yet, and Democrats don’t want a shutdown nor do many Republicans, but some have said in past funding fights that they’d be fine with it. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has managed to keep the government operating so far despite opposition by the ultra-conservative wing of his party, but those dynamics may have changed after the election. All we can say is “stay tuned.”

The week starts today with the VEXAG meeting discussed below, but the BIG EVENT will be on Tuesday with the sixth Integrated Flight Test (IFT-6) of SpaceX’s Starship.  The last one, IFT-5, was … awesome. Not a word we use very often on this website, but that mid-air booster catch was really quite something.


They’re going to try again this time. Meanwhile, the second stage — “the ship” — will fly over to the Indian Ocean again, but this time they are going to try to reignite one of the Raptor engines while it’s in space. They’ll also test “a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes” for reentry and descent.

As with the previous test flights, this is a suborbital mission.  The ship will not go into orbit, but travel about two-thirds of the way around the globe. They’re launching in the afternoon this time so it’s daylight in the Indian Ocean when the ship splashes down there and they can get a better view from their pre-positioned buoys. The 30-minute launch window opens at 4:00 pm CENTRAL Time (5:00 pm Eastern). SpaceX’s webcast will begin 30 minutes before liftoff. SpaceX reminds everyone that “the schedule is dynamic and likely to change.” Keep up to date on their website or X feed (@spacex). We will, of course, post whatever information we get ASAP.

That’s tough to top, but there are several other interesting events this week, starting with VEXAG — NASA’s Venus Exploration Analysis Group — today through Tuesday in Louisville, KY and online. It begins with an overview of Venus exploration strategy, goals, roadmap and technology plan. Tomorrow has updates on the two U.S. and one European Venus probes planned for launch around 2031 — VERITAS, DAVINCI and EnVision.

NASA’s DAVINCI mission to Venus is one of the topics at this week’s Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) meeting.

VEXAG is one of the “analysis groups” or “assessment groups” — AGs — in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) that provide input from the science community in addition to the formal “advisory committees” created through the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) process. Another one, the Outer Planets Analysis Group or OPAG, is meeting virtually Wednesday-Friday. It similarly has a full agenda of briefings with updates on planetary exploration programs including the just-launched Europa Clipper (Thursday). One of the FACA committees also is meeting this week (Friday), the Biological and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee. These are all mechanisms for NASA to interact with the non-government science community to share information and perspectives.

NASA’s new Director for Space Sustainability, former astronaut Alvin Drew, will speak to the Space Studies Board on Tuesday.

The National Academies’ Space Studies Board (SSB) and Board on Physics and Astronomy (BPA) are meeting separately and jointly at the Beckman Center in California Tuesday-Thursday. Open sessions will be livestreamed. Science Mission Directorate head Nicky Fox kicks off the open sessions on Tuesday morning followed by Steve Volz, head of NOAA/NESDIS. Later in the day NOAA Office of Space Commerce Director Richard DalBello and NASA’s new Director of Space Sustainability Alvin Drew will talk about space sustainability and orbital debris. Mark Clampin, Director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division, speaks on Thursday during the joint SSB/BPA meeting.

The United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs in Vienna, Austria, which administers the U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), is holding a three-day conference on space law and policy this week. It’s in-person only. The agenda is quite interesting with broad international participation, but the thin U.S. presence is a bit surprising.  The theme of the first day is “promoting responsible, peaceful and safe use of outer space and maintaining sustainability of outer space activities,” but without anyone from the U.S. among the speakers. They are from Nigeria, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, the Republic of Korea and AgniKul Cosmos (an Indian startup building small launch vehicles).

Across the entire three days, the only U.S. speakers are on the second day. Sara Langston from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University participates in a panel about “Dark and Quiet Skies and Legal Framework” with experts from South Africa, the U.K., and Indonesia.  Jeremy Weinberg from the State Department is on a panel about “Information Sharing: Unlocking the Key to a Continuation of Cooperation and Peaceful Activities in Outer Space” with representatives from Wuhan University, Roscosmos, Alden Legal (a U.K.-based law firm), ESA, and the space agencies of Brazil and Ethiopia. Hopefully that is just a reflection of the growing global recognition of the value and importance of space activities and there was a great deal of interest in participating in the conference. COPUOS has 102 member states and quite a few have speaking roles as do other countries like Bhutan and Namibia. It’s unfortunate there’s no virtual option to listen in.

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-Tuesday, November 17-19

Monday-Friday, November 18-22

Tuesday, November 19

Tuesday-Thursday, November 19-21 (local time in all cases)

Wednesday, November 20

Wednesday-Thursday, November 20-21

Wednesday-Friday, November 20-22

Thursday, November 21

Thursday-Friday, November 21-22

Friday, November 22

Last Updated: Nov 17, 2024 3:18 pm ET

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