WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SPACE POLICY October 6-12, 2019

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of October 6-12, 2019 and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess (except for pro forma sessions) until October 15, the day after the Columbus Day federal holiday.

During the Week

The week is already off to a roaring start today, Sunday.  Two ISS astronauts (Koch and Morgan) are in the midst of the first of five spacewalks to replace batteries on exterior of the International Space Station (watch on NASA TV).  The second is on Friday.

Here on Terra Firma, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) will hold a session this afternoon at 3:30 pm ET on the legacy of the Apollo program with former NASA astronauts Lt. Gen. Tom Stafford (USAF, Ret.) and Maj. Gen. Charlie Bolden (USMC, Ret.)  It will be webcast.  Stafford will talk about “The Apollo Experience” and Bolden will discuss “The Diplomacy of Space Exploration.” He just completed a stint as a State Department Science Envoy for Space with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.

Stafford and Bolden will be joined tomorrow morning (Monday) for a panel discussion on the future of human spaceflight with former NASA astronauts Bob Crippen and Sandy Magnus, former NASA and current Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, and SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann. That also will be webcast.

Stafford is one of the icons of the Apollo era and chairs NASA’s ISS Advisory Committee.  Bolden piloted or commanded four space shuttle missions and was Administrator of NASA from 2009-2017.  Crippen’s experience dates back to DOD’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program. He transferred to NASA after MOL was cancelled and flew on the FIRST space shuttle mission in 1981 (and was pilot or commander for three others) and later was president of Thiokol Propulsion.  Magnus and Ferguson bookended the shuttle era as two of the crew members of the LAST space shuttle mission in 2011.  Magnus flew on two other shuttle missions and had a long duration stay on ISS, later was Executive Director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and now is at DOD as Deputy Director of Engineering in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.  Ferguson flew on two other shuttle missions before leaving NASA and joining Boeing.  He will command the first flight — the crewed test flight — of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner for NASA’s commercial crew program.  Koenigsmann is SpaceX’s Vice President of Build and Flight Reliability and while not an astronaut is critically involved in SpaceX’s human spaceflight program including its commercial crew system Crew Dragon.  Should be fascinating!

The annual International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) is Wednesday-Thursday at its usual location in Las Cruces, New Mexico (with pre-conference events on Monday and Tuesday).   Fantastic set of speakers, as always.  It’s a veritable who’s who of the commercial human spaceflight industry. We don’t want to offend anyone by not listing everyone, so check out the agenda.  Ken Bowersox, acting head of NASA’s human spaceflight program, will also be there.

The D.C. chapter of AFCEA is having an interesting luncheon at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, VA on Thursday on “Evolution of DOD’s Space Components.”  Speakers are Stephen Kitay, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy; Paul Thomas from DARPA; and Derek Tournear, Acting Director of the new Space Development Agency.

Congress is still in recess, but Space Advocates, a non-partisan group on the Hill, will hold a briefing on NASA’s Dragonfly mission to Titan on Friday.  Elizabeth Turtle of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU-APL) is the Principal Investigator (PI) for that mission and while she will not be there, two of her colleagues will: Shannon MacKenzie, planetary scientist, and Ken Hibbard, mission systems engineer.

Lots going on overseas, too.  Luxembourg is holding a Space Resources Week that includes a one-day Mining Space Summit on Wednesday and a two-day workshop with ESA (Thursday-Friday) on “What’s Next for Space Resources Utilisation?”  “Space Week 2019: Beyond the Horizon” is taking place in Rome, Italy and the Montréal Space Symposium 2019 in Montréal, Canada.

Those events and others 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.

Sunday, October 6

• 1st of Five Spacewalks to Replace ISS Batteries, Earth orbit, NASA TV begins 6:30 am ET
• ESA Annual “Open Day” at ESTEC: ESA to the Moon, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

Sunday-Monday, October 6-7

• NAE Public Sessions on the Legacy of Apollo and the Future of Human Spaceflight (webcast)
  • Sunday, 3:30-4:45 pm ET:  Tom Stafford and Charlie Bolden
  • Monday, 9:45-11:45 am ET:  Tom Stafford, Charlie Bolden, Bob Crippen, Sandy Magnus, Chris Ferguson, Hans Koenigsmann

Sunday-Thursday, October 6-10 (continued from October 4)

• World Space Week events, global

Monday-Friday, October 7-11

• Luxembourg Space Resources Week, Luxembourg

Tuesday, October 8

• NASA Pre-Launch Press Briefing for ICON, Kennedy Space Center, FL, 1:00-2:00 pm ET (webcast)

Tuesday-Thursday, October 8-10

• Satellite Innovation 2019, Mountain View, CA

Wednesday, October 9

• Mining Space Summit (part of Luxembourg Space Resources Week), Luxembourg
• Space Breakfast re Launch Ranges with Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess (Mitchell Institute), Capitol Hill Club, 300 1st St. SE, Washington, DC, 8:30-9:30 am ET
• Launch of NASA’s ICON Spacecraft, Kennedy Space Center, FL, NASA TV coverage begins 9:15 pm ET

Wednesday-Thursday, October 9-10

• International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS), Las Cruces, NM

Wednesday-Friday, October 9-11

• Space Week 2019: Beyond the Horizon, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana headquarters, Rome, Italy

Thursday, October 10

• Evolution of DOD’s Space Components (DC Chapter of AFCEA), Army Navy Country Club, Arlington, VA, 11:15 am – 1:45 pm ET

Thursday-Friday, October 10-11

• Montréal Space Symposium 2019: Going Beyond, ICAO headquarters, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
• What Next for Space Resources Utilisation (part of Luxembourg Space Resources Week), Luxembourg

Friday, October 11

• 2nd of Five Spacewalks to Replace ISS Batteries, Earth orbit (NASA TV coverage begins 6:30 am ET)
• NASA’s Dragonfly Mission to Titan (Space Advocates), 2325 Rayburn House Office Building, 10:00 am ET