What’s Happening in Space Policy November 24-December 7, 2024
Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the next two weeks, November 24-December 7, 2024, and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess this week except for pro forma sessions and will return for legislative business next week.
During the Weeks
The U.S. celebrates Thanksgiving on Thursday and that means it’s pretty quiet here on the space policy front. The only events are overseas, so this edition of “What’s Happening” includes next week, too.
Among this week’s overseas events are three in Europe. ESA will hold the second EO Commercialisation Forum in Frankfurt on Wednesday and Thursday with the theme “Addressing Climate Challenges and Opportunities with Earth Observation for Human and Planet Prosperity.” The conference will be broadcast on ESA Web TV. VIPs from ESA, the European Commission, and DLR (Germany’s space agency) kick it off Wednesday morning at 9:00 am Central European Time (CET), which is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time (so that’s 3:00 am EST).
ESA also has two media briefings this week in advance of launches next week. First is the return-to-fight of Vega-C on December 3 from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. The pre-launch briefing is 15:00 CET (9:00 am EST) this Wednesday, November 27, and will be livestreamed on ESA Web TV. The rocket will launch Sentinel-1C for the European Union’s Copernicus earth observation satellite system. Vega-C is the replacement for Vega, which made its final flight in September. Vega-C was intended to be fully operational by now, but it failed on its second flight in December 2022. It’s taken almost two years to fix after suffering a setback in June 2023 during a test at its manufacturer, Avio. Avio and ESA are confident it is now ready to go.
ESA’s Proba-3 will launch on India’s PSLV rocket on December 4. The pre-launch briefing is 11:00 am CET (5:00 am EST) this Thursday, November 28. ESA says it will be recorded and available on their website, but apparently not livestreamed. Proba-3 is a pair of precision flying spacecraft that will create artificial solar eclipses to study the Sun’s corona. One will cast a shadow on the other within 1 millimeter accuracy, allowing eclipses for up to six hours at a time.
Studying solar eclipses is part of the scientific discipline called solar and space physics, or heliophysics. By coincidence, the next day (December 5) the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will release its new Decadal Survey for solar and space physics. The Sun has been in the news a lot this year between the total eclipse over parts of the United States in April and the astonishing auroras visible much further south than usual.
The Academies perform Decadal Surveys once every 10 years — a decade — for each of NASA’s science divisions to identify the top scientific questions for the next decade and recommend missions to answer them. Representatives from each science community volunteer to serve on Decadal Survey committees and it takes about two years for them to deliberate, reach consensus and write their report (and get it through the Academies’ thorough review process).
The head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Nicky Fox, is herself a heliophysicist and often mentions how eager she is to see what her colleagues propose this time. As SMD Associate Administrator she had to recommend canceling a major heliophysics project, Geospace Dynamics Constellation, because of budget cuts. The GDC responds to recommendations in the last Decadal Survey and the Senate Appropriations Committee still wants it to launch before the end of this decade. She was asked about the status of GDC last week at a meeting of the Academies’ Space Studies Board and she said she was looking forward to seeing how the science that GDC would produce is prioritized this time and if there are “maybe creative ways” to do some of that science even if they can’t do the full mission.
Other events coming up next week include the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR) conference in Puerto Rico; the 11th Space Resiliency Summit in National Harbor, MD; the Cislunar Security Conference in Laurel, MD; a meeting of the National Academies’ Committee on Planetary Protection in Irvine, CA; and many more.
So enjoy the chance to relax this week, because next week it’s back to business as usual.
The events we know about as of Sunday morning, November 24, are shown below. Check back throughout the weeks for others we learn about later and add to our Calendar or changes to these.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Monday-Friday, November 25-29
- Western Australia Space Week — IPSEC and APRSAF, Perth, Australia
Wednesday, November 27
- ESA Pre-Launch Media Briefing for Sentinel-1C launch and Vega-C Return to Flight, virtual, 15:00 CET (9:00 am EST), livestreamed on ESA Web TV
Wednesday-Thursday, November 27-28
- 2nd EO Commercialisation (CommEO) Forum (ESA), Frankfurt, Germany, livestreamed on ESA Web TV
Wednesday-Friday, November 27-29
- 5th Space for Woman Summit (UNOOSA), Nairobi, Kenya
Thursday, November 28
- U.S. Thanksgiving Day (federal holiday)
- ESA Pre-Launch Media Briefing for Proba-C Launch, virtual, 11:00 CET (5:00 am EST), recorded and available on ESA’s website
Monday, December 2
- NASA Extraterrestrial Materials Assessment Group (ExMAG), virtual, 11:00 am ET
Monday-Wednesday, December 2-4
Tuesday, December 3
- WIA Program with NASA’s Makenzie Lystrup and Wanda Peters, BAE Systems, 2111 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA, 9:00-10:00 am ET
- Launch of Sentinel-1C/Vega-C Return to Flight, Kourou, French Guiana, 4:20 pm ET (18:20 local time in Kourou)
Tuesday-Thursday, December 3-5
- UN World Space Forum, Bonn, Germany
Tuesday-Saturday, December 3-7
- American Society for Gravitational and Space Research (ASGSR), San Juan, Puerto Rico
Wednesday, December 4
- COSMIC Convergence 2024 Conference, virtual, 11:00 am-5:00 pm ET (COSMIC members only)
- Extreme Weather: Revolutionizing Weather Preparedness with Space Tech (Space News), virtual, 1:00 pm ET
- NASA SMD Virtual Town Hall on “No Due Date” Programs, virtual, 3:00 pm ET
Wednesday-Thursday, December 4-5
- 11th Annual Space Resiliency Summit (DSI), National Harbor, MD
- National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board, Redondo Beach, CA/virtual
Wednesday-Friday, December 4-6
- Committee on Planetary Protection (National Academies), Beckman Center, Irvine, CA (some sessions are open, some are closed; open sessions are livestreamed)
- Cislunar Security Conference, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD (portions restricted)
Thursday, December 5
- SpX-31 Cargo Mission Undocks from ISS, Earth orbit, 11:15 am ET (NASA+ begins 11:00 am ET
This article has been updated.
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