What’s Happening in Space Policy October 13-19, 2024

What’s Happening in Space Policy October 13-19, 2024

By Marcia Smith | Posted: October 13, 2024 1:59 pm ET | Last Updated: October 13, 2024 1:59 pm ET

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 13-19, 2024 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in recess until after the November elections, except for pro forma sessions.

During the Week

This morning (Sunday) we may not have gotten the “space trifecta” that seemed so likely last night, but the one that did happen, SpaceX’s Starship Integrated Flight Test-5 (IFT-5), certainly made up for any excitement the others might have generated. The rest of the week has a lot of excitement ahead, too. Tomorrow (Monday) actually is a Federal Holiday, but the space program never sleeps so a lot of people won’t get to enjoy it.

This morning SpaceX achieved another engineering first, returning Starship’s Super Heavy booster back to its launch tower and catching it in mid-air with two mechanical arms called “chopsticks.” The company has been saying it would do this for years, but many were skeptical. It does seem like something out of science fiction, but now it is science fact. Super Heavy boosted Starship onto a suborbital trajectory and it splashed down in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia just over an hour later. SpaceX posted video of the entire mission that’s well worth watching, but if you just want to see the “booster catch,” it begins at 35:54 when Super Heavy detaches from Starship. The really impressive part starts at 39:13.


What didn’t happen this morning, and probably will later this week, are Crew-8’s return from the International Space Station and the verification flight of Blue Origin’s new version of New Shepard. Crew-8 was delayed yet again due to weather. New Shepard-27 was scrubbed again, this time because of a problem with GPS. New dates have not been announced for either. We’ll post any information we get on our Calendar.

Another launch that’s been waiting to go is NASA’s Europa Clipper, delayed by Hurricane Milton. It will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. At the moment they are targeting tomorrow, October 14, at 12:06 pm ET.  The Flight Readiness Review is this afternoon and NASA will have a pre-launch media telecon thereafter. The NASA Live schedule shows it at 4:15 pm ET, but the time could change depending on how long the FRR takes.  At one point they’d been hoping to launch today, but delayed it “to double-check technical readiness of the Falcon Heavy rocket, as well as continued assessments for launch readiness following Hurricane Milton.”  If this schedule holds, NASA+ coverage will begin at 11:00 am ET tomorrow morning.

Artist’s illustration of Europa Clipper flying over Jupiter’s moon Europa, with Jupiter in the background. Credit: NASA  Hopefully the spacecraft will launch tomorrow, Octoeber 14.

Another big event this week is the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC), in Milan, Italy this year.  It combines meetings of the International Astronautical Federation, the International Academy of Astronautics, and the International Institute of Space Law. Space agency officials from around the world participate in the IAC and use the occasion for other meetings with each other.  NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy will both be there and three of their events will be shown on NASA’s YouTube channel. Two are tomorrow morning (Monday), the first at 7:45 am ET (One-to-One With Heads of Agencies with Nelson) and the other at 12:15 pm ET (Plenary on Responsible and Sustainable Space Exploration for Moon to Mars with Melroy).  On Wednesday Melroy will participate in another one at 9:00 am ET on A New Era in Human Presence.

Nelson is there already and today witnessed Estonia signing on as the 45th member of the Artemis Accords.

One other event we’ll highlight is “Astrobiology and the Future of Life” taking place in Houston and online Wednesday-Friday. Europa Clipper, of course, is searching for evidence that Europa might be habitable — a suitable environment for life — but it is just a small part of the overall search for life elsewhere.  The conference offers a deep dive into many topics including plans for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, Technosignatures and the Future of Life, Venus as a Possible End Point to Earth Habitability, Space Settlement and Astrobiology, and more.

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, October 13

Monday, October 14

Monday-Friday, October 14-18, 2024

Tuesday, October 15

Tuesday-Thursday, October 15-17

Wednesday, October 16

Wednesday-Friday, October 16-18

Thursday, October 17

Last Updated: Oct 13, 2024 1:59 pm ET

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