What’s Happening in Space Policy September 14-20, 2025

Here is SpacePolicyOnline.com’s list of space policy events for the week of September 14-20, 2025 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session this week.

During the Week

The week begins today (Sunday) with the launch of Northrop Grumman’s next Cygnus cargo ship, NG-23, to the International Space Station at 6:11 pm ET. This is the first of the new XL version. Although it’s designated NG-23, this is actually the 22nd, not the 23rd, Cygnus launch. NG-22 was damaged during shipment to the launch site. During a pre-launch media telecon on Friday, NG’s Ryan Tintner said NG-22 will fly once it’s repaired, but they don’t have a date for that yet.

Instead they moved on to this new XL version that can take 33 percent more cargo to the ISS. If launch happens tonight (the weather is 75% favorable), NG-23 will arrive at the ISS on Wednesday.  [UPDATE: The launch did in fact take place as planned.] NG names Cygnus spacecraft after individuals who made substantial contributions to human spaceflight and NG-23 is named for William “Willie” McCool who perished in the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy.

Launch is on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, FL.  NG usually launches Cygnus on its own Antares rockets from its own launch site at Wallops Island, VA, but is waiting for a new version of Antares to be ready. The previous version used Ukrainian and Russian hardware that is no longer available following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. NG and Firefly are jointly building the new rocket, Eclipse.  It’s not clear when that will fly, but Tintner said on Friday the next Cygnus, NG-24, will again be on a SpaceX Falcon 9. That’ll be the fourth SpaceX launch for Cygnus. NG touts the fact that Cygnus can fly on a variety of rockets. It also flew on ULA’s Atlas V three times after a failure of the original version of Antares in 2014.

The rest of the week is busy, busy, busy with conferences near and far. Among them:

• the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance (AMOS) Technologies Conference and its associated EMER-GEN conference in Maui, Hawaii (EMER-GEN is today through Tuesday; AMOS is Wednesday through Friday);
• the 39th International Electric Propulsion Conference, with “Electric Propulsion: A Gateway to the Cosmos” as the theme, is today through Friday in London;
• World Space Business Week in Paris is Monday to Friday, with its associated Space Defense and Security Summit Tuesday-Wednesday;
• Space Logistics Conference in Arlington, VA, Thursday and Friday; and
• AFCEA and INSA Intelligence & National Security Summit in National Harbor, MD, also Thursday-Friday.

We’re particularly interested in the AMOS conference where U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman will give the keynote address on Wednesday.

Military speakers at events like this have become scarce since DOD instituted a new policy in July sharply limiting participation in events sponsored by non-profit institutions, so this is a big win for the organizers. AMOS has a long list of other top-notch speakers and panel sessions including the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Space Policy Forum following Saltzman, a keynote by the Director of the U.N. Office of Outer Space Affairs Aarti Holla-Maini on Thursday, and a fireside chat on Friday with three key figures in the evolution of U.S. space traffic management policy — Richard DalBello, Diane Howard, and Kevin O’Connell.  In-person attendance is sold out, but a virtual option is still available though the time zone difference to Hawaii can be challenging.

Up on Capitol Hill, the House made progress last week on the first FY2026 appropriations “minibus.” When all 12 appropriations bills are combined it’s called an omnibus. When there are smaller groups, they’re called minibuses. In this case it’s three: Military Construction/Veterans Affairs (MilCon/VA), Agriculture, and Legislative Branch.

The House has passed only one of them, MilCon/VA (H.R. 3944), but when the Senate passed its version of MilCon/VA, it added the other two and sent the bill back to the House as a minibus. The House approved it last week and the Speaker appointed conferees on Thursday. There’s no direct connection to any of the bills that fund space activities (Defense, CJS, THUD), but progress on any appropriations bill(s) could be a good sign for others, though these are some of the easier bills to reach agreement on.  This House and Senate have very different approaches to appropriations. The House is strongly partisan, while the Senate strives to be bipartisan. The conference will be an interesting test to see if compromise is possible. The next step is for the Senate to appoint conferees.

Meanwhile, plans are underway to begin work on a Continuing Resolution (CR) this week to keep all of the government open when FY2026 begins on October 1. Details are fluid, but last we heard they’re looking at a CR through November 20. Both chambers are scheduled to be in recess next week for Rosh Hashanah, returning on September 29 with just two days left to avoid a shutdown.

Appropriations is one of the few areas of bipartisanship in the Senate. Getting President Trump’s nominees expeditously confirmed is considerably less so. That topic is far outside our remit and we mention it only because it is affecting the nomination (PN22-9) of Neil Jacobs to be NOAA Administrator. He was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee on July 30 by voice vote, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) reportedly is concerned Democrats could object to the manner in which the vote was taken so he sent it back to committee. They’ll vote on it again on Wednesday.

Lots of other great events as usual, including TWO Beyond Earth Institute webinars. Wednesday’s is about the “current gaps in space-based food systems, the specific needs of planned missions, and how these fit into the broader Moon to Mars Strategy.”  Thursday’s is on “Navigating the New Space Policy Landscape” with space policy veterans Courtney Stadd, Jim Muncy, Bhavya Lal and Charles Miller.

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, September 14

• Launch of NG-23 to the ISS, CCSFS, 6:11 pm ET (NASA coverage begins 5:50 pm ET)

Sunday-Tuesday, September 14-17

• EMER-GEN (in conjunction with the AMOS conference), Maui, Hawaii

Sunday-Friday, September 14-19

• 39th International Electric Propulsion Conference: Electric Propulsion–A Gateway to the Cosmos, London, UK

Monday-Wednesday, September 15-17

• Applied Sciences Panel of the Committee on Key Non-Polar Lunar Destinations (Natl Acad), Beckman Center, Irvine, CA (open sessions are on September 15 only and will be livestreamed)

Monday-Friday, September 15-19

• NASA Extraterrestrial Materials Analysis Group (ExMAG), Houston, TX
• World Space Business Week, Paris, FR

Tuesday-Wednesday, September 16-17

• Space and Defense Security Summit (in conjunction with World Space Business Week), Paris, FR

Tuesday-Friday, September 16-19

• 2025 AMOS Conference, Maui, Hawaii (conference sessions begin on Wednesday)

Wednesday, September 17

• NG-23 Arrives at the ISS, 6:35 am ET (NASA coverage begins 5:00 am ET)
• Senate Commerce Committee Re-Votes on Neil Jacobs Nomination to be NOAA Administrator, 253 Russell Senate Office Building, 10:00 am ET (webcast)
• Shortfalls of Food Production in Space and Future Needs (BEI), virtual, 12:00-1:30 pm ET

Wednesday-Friday, September 17-19

• Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space (Natl Acad), National Academy of Sciences building, 2101 Constitution Ave, NW, Washington, DC (some sessions are open, some are closed; open sessions are livestreamed)

Thursday, September 18

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln Space Law Conference, Army & Navy Club, 901 17th St., NW, Washington, DC, 1:00-4:50 pm ET
• Navigating the New Space Policy Landscape (BEI), virtual, 1:00-2:30 pm ET
• Boosting LEO Satellite Capacity: Is the FCC’s Launch on Target? (New America), virtual, 2:00-3:00 pm ET

Thursday-Friday, September 18-19

• Space Logistics Conference (SAE Media Group), Arlington, VA
• 2025 AFCEA and INSA Intelligence and National Security Summit, National Harbor, MD

 

This article has been updated.