What’s Happening in Space Policy November 9-15, 2025

What’s Happening in Space Policy November 9-15, 2025

By Marcia Smith | Posted: November 9, 2025 12:41 pm ET | Last Updated: November 10, 2025 12:12 am ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of November 9-15, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House remains in recess indefinitely except for pro forma sessions. The Senate is in session this weekend and Majority Leader Thune says it will remain in session until a solution to the shutdown is found.

During the Week

We’ll begin with Blue Origin’s second New Glenn launch since it is on tap for launch this afternoon (Sunday), but an update on the partial government shutdown as it enters its 40th day today follows, along with our usual list of upcoming events. We’ll also mention here at the top that Tuesday is a holiday (Veterans Day).

If all goes according to plan, New Glenn-2 (NG-2) will lift off at 2:45 pm ET. The window is open until 4:13 pm ET.  New Glenn’s first launch in January went perfectly, but not the landing.  Like SpaceX’s Falcon rockets, the first stage of New Glenn, GS-1, is reusable and intended to land on a barge in the ocean (named Jacklyn in honor of Jeff Bezos’s mother).  The company said the NG-1 first stage did not land because three BE-4 engines did not re-ignite properly.  During a pre-launch press conference yesterday, Laura Maginnis, Blue Origin Vice President for Mission Management for New Glenn, said the 10-month gap between that flight and this one is because they’ve been working on the landing system.  As we posted yesterday, NG-2 is sending two NASA ESCAPADE cubesats named Blue and Gold to Mars. [UPDATE, 4:20 pm ET: The launch was scrubbed at the end of the launch window officially due to weather, but a cruise ship in the safety zone and a problem with ground support equipment at the pad were other wrinkles. They will try again on Wednesday, November 12. The launch window is 2:50-4:17 pm ET. The webcast begins 20 minutes before liftoff.]

The weather is 55-65 percent favorable (so a 35-45 percent Probability of Violation or POV) today, and slightly better tomorrow.  HOWEVER, if the launch slips to tomorrow, it comes under the new FAA launch and landing curfew that restricts them to nighttime hours, 10:00 pm-6:00 am local time.  So if they want to launch in mid-afternoon on Monday, they’ll need to get special permission from the FAA. The FAA is reducing use of the National Air Space (NAS) both for aircraft and space launches because of staffing shortages due to air traffic controllers calling in sick because they’re not getting paid because of the shutdown. Like other essential workers (including those at NASA operating the International Space Station, other NASA spacecraft, and getting Artemis II ready for launch), they have to work even though their paychecks are in limbo.

As for the shutdown, the outlook for a resolution was looking pretty good in the middle of last week, but it fell apart after President Trump weighed in. He’s demanding that Senate Republicans get rid of the filibuster so legislation like this can pass with a simple majority as it does in the House instead of requiring 60 votes. There are 53 Republicans in the Senate right now, so they could pass anything they want as long as 51 of them agree (or 50 if there’s a tie that the Vice President can break). The filibuster differentiates the Senate from the House where a simple majority is all that’s needed. On most matters in the Senate at least some amount of bipartisanship is needed.  Nominations and reconciliation measures are already exempt from the filibuster, but many Senators on both sides of the aisle are reluctant to go further knowing that control of the Senate shifts between the parties and they could end up on the losing side.

The debate over the underlying reason for the shutdown — the expiring Affordable Health Care (“Obamacare”) subsidies — is beyond the remit of this space policy website, but the state of play is that on Friday Democrats offered to agree to a one-year extension while they hammer out a longer-term agreement instead of a permanent extension. Republicans insist they won’t discuss anything until the shutdown ends. The Senate is working through this weekend and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) says he’ll keep the Senate in session until it does. He keeps hoping that five more Democrats/Independents will join the three who already have been voting for the House-passed CR (Cortez Masto, Fetterman and King) to get to the 60-vote threshold.

When they’ll reach agreement is anyone’s guess. The Senate and House actually were scheduled to be out of session this week for the Veterans Day holiday. The House will indeed be out of session yet again. It hasn’t met for legislative business since September 19.

The CR that passed the House on September 19 has an expiration date of November 21. At a minimum a Senate-passed CR needs to extend that date, which means the House will have to vote on it again and Johnson would have to get them back into town to do that.

As we always say, anything can happen in Washington. [UPDATE: And indeed, late this evening the Senate voted 60-40 on a procedural motion to reopen the government, the first step in a process that could take several days.]

There are some very interesting space policy events this week, however.

On Wednesday, Space News will hold a webinar on “The Role of Space-Based Interceptors in Golden Dome.” Everyone is still waiting to hear the details of what the Administration is planning for Golden Dome, but the possibility of including space-based interceptors (SBIs) is getting a lot of attention.  The Reagan Administration proposed that back in the Strategic Defense Initiative era and it has reemerged with Golden Dome. Whether the technology is ready now and the geopolitical consequences of putting weapons in space are hot topics. Space News’s national security reporter Sandra Erwin will discuss “the promise and pitfalls” with Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute, Patrick Binning of Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, and Todd Stevens from Lockheed Martin Space. Harrison wrote a paper estimating how much Golden Dome might cost depending on what’s included and then developed a really nifty website where you can calculate the cost of SBIs yourself depending on what you want them to be able to do.

On Thursday, the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and the Aerospace Corporation will debate whether it’s time to repeal the Wolf Amendment. Named for former Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) who chaired the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds NASA back in 2011 when the amendment was first added to the Commerce-Justice-Science bill, it restricts bilateral space cooperation with China. It doesn’t prohibit U.S.-China civil space cooperation, but requires advance congressional approval that includes FBI certification that the cooperation doesn’t pose any risk of technology transfer or involve interactions with Chinese officials who violate human rights. Congress has included the provision in every CJS appropriations bill since. The event’s website doesn’t indicate who the speakers are, but the emailed invitation says they “will examine the evolution of the U.S.-China relationship and debate whether the Wolf Amendment is still useful or a hindrance in the U.S.-China space relationship.” A virtual option is available.

Also on Thursday, New America and the International Center for Law & Economics will hold a symposium to discuss recommendations from their LEO Policy Working Group that’s been studying the “challenges and opportunities” associated with the “tens of thousands” of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites being launched for Internet connectivity. The FCC’s Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz is listed as the keynote speaker, but with the shutdown continuing, the participation of government employees at any of these events is iffy. They’ve got a great group of other speakers in any case, including a “LEOs 101” introduction by Patricia Cooper, who now has her own consultancy, Constellation Advisory, and was previously with SpaceX, Intelsat, the Satellite Industry Association, and the FCC. Then there are three panels on Spectrum, Digital Divide, and Competition.

One more note. Last week China’s Manned Space Agency (CMSA) postponed the return of the Shenzhou-20 crew because their spacecraft apparently was struck by space debris. No further information has been forthcoming about whether they’ve determined the spacecraft isn’t safe enough to bring the crew home (as happened with Soyuz MS-22) and, if so, what they plan to do about it. For now both the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 crews remain aboard Tiangong-3.  Well be keeping an eye out for news.

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, November 9

Monday, November 10

Tuesday, November 11

Wednesday, November 12

Wednesday-Friday, November 12-14

Thursday, November 13

 

This article has been updated.

Last Updated: Nov 10, 2025 12:12 am ET

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