What's Happening in Space Policy October 6-10, 2014

Here is our list of space policy related events for the week of October 6-10, 2014 and any insight we can offer about them.  Congress is in recess until November 12.

During the Week

World Space Week 2014 continues (it began on Saturday) with events worldwide commemorating the beginning of the Space Age on October 4, 1957 and the benefits derived from space over the decades. This year’s theme is “Space: Guiding Your Way” and the DC chapter of the International Space University alumni association will hold a Space Café on Tuesday featuring James Miller, who works for NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation program.

Two of the five standing committees of the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Space Studies Board (SSB) will meet this week.  The five committees align with the five Decadal Surveys the SSB produces that advise NASA and other agencies on the top space science priorities.  The committees provide a forum to maintain discussion about the topics in between the once-a-decade (hence “decadal”) reports.   This is the first meeting of the new Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, formed after completion of the first Decadal Survey for that field of research, which was published in 2011.  It is meeting at the NRC’s Keck Center on 5th Street Tuesday and Wednesday, though the sessions on Wednesday are closed to the public.  The SSB’s Committee on Solar and Space Physics will meet Tuesday-Thursday across town at the National Academy of Sciences building on Constitution Ave.  It will have open sessions the first two days.  (If you’re keeping track, the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences and the Committee on Earth Science and Applications in Space met in September; the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics meets in November.)

On Tuesday the first of two “U.S.” spacewalks scheduled for October will take place from the International Space Station (ISS).  They are “U.S.” because they involve tasks on the U.S. Operating Segment (USOS) and the spacewalkers will be wearing U.S. spacesuits, but one of the two is Europe’s Alexander Gerst (joining NASA’s Reid Wiseman) so it really is a U.S./ESA spacewalk.  Next week (October 15) Wiseman and NASA’s Barry “Butch” Wilmore will do another spacewalk, and the week after that, on October 22, two of the Russian cosmonauts will do a spacewalk on their segment of the ISS.  It’s a busy time on the ISS with visiting spacecraft coming and going in addition to those spacewalks.   Three new crewmembers just arrived on September 25.   Two cargo spacecraft, a Russian Progress and SpaceX Dragon, already docked there will depart and be replaced by a new Progress and an Orbital Sciences Corporation Cygnus later this month.

Those and other events for the week of October 6-10 that we know about as of Sunday afternoon are listed below.

October 6-10, Monday- Friday

• World Space Week continues, everywhere (the week officially is October 4-10)

Tuesday, October 7

• ISS Spacewalk (NASA/ESA), NASA TV coverage begins 7:00 am ET (spacewalk begins at approximately 8:10 am ET)
• ISU-DC Space Café Featuring NASA’s James Miller (a World Space Week event), The Science Club, Washington, DC, 7:00 pm ET

Tuesday-Wednesday, October 7-8

• National Research Council (NRC) Space Studies Board (SSB) Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, NRC Keck Center, 500 5th St., NW, Washington, DC (some sessions are closed — open sessions only on October 7)

Tuesday-Thursday, October 7-9

• NRC SSB Committee on Solar and Space Physics, National Academy of Sciences building, 2101 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington, DC (some sessions are closed — open sessions on October 7 and 8)

Tuesday-Friday, October 7-10

• 4th International Workshop on LunarCubes, Sheraton Sunnyvale, Sunnyvale, CA

Thursday, October 9

• Orbital Slots and Spectrum Use in an Era of Interference (IFRI/SWF), Brussels, Belgium