Here is our list of space policy events for the week of September 12-16, 2016 and any insight we can offer about them. The House and Senate are in session.

During the Week

From Long Beach, California to Vienna, Austria, it’s a busy week in space policy.

Starting in Long Beach, AIAA holds its Space 2016 conference Tuesday-Thursday. Many sessions will be livestreamed and others will be posted later. The agenda on the livestream site tells you which is which. Note that all the times are Pacific Daylight Time, so add three for Eastern Daylight Time. NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, DOD’s Winston Beauchamp, and DFJ’s Steve Jurvetson formally kick things off on Tuesday at 8:00 am PDT/11:00 am EDT. There are many very interesting plenary and “Forum 360” presentations throughout the conference, as well as the Yvonne C. Brill Lectureship on Thursday evening (6:30-7:30 pm PT/9:30-10:30 pm ET). The Brill Lectureship is awarded every two years by AIAA and the National Academy of Engineering. This year’s honoree is Wanda Austin, President and CEO of the Aerospace Corporation, who will speak on Engineering Leadership. It will be livestreamed.

Just south of Long Beach, in Irvine, the National Academies Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences (CAPS) is meeting on Wednesday-Thursday. It will be available by WebEx and telecon. Among the topics are updates on robotic Mars exploration, the Europa mission, efforts to ensure a reliable supply of plutonium-238 (needed to power spacecraft that travel too far from the Sun or will land somewhere that make solar power infeasible), and NASA’s astrobiology program.

Jumping 3,000 miles to the East, astrobiology will also be a topic in Washington, DC at the Library of Congress’s Kluge Center on Thursday. The day-long symposium will discuss “The Emergence of Life: On the Earth, in the Lab, and Elsewhere.” It will be filmed and the video posted later on the Kluge Center’s website and YouTube.

Many other events are on tap in the Washington area. We’ll highlight just two here. First. the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) will meet via telecon to discuss draft legislation proposed by Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma) to allow the FAA to perform an enhanced version of its current payload review process to authorize companies to conduct certain operations in Earth orbit, on the Moon and elsewhere in compliance with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. The FAA did that for Moon Express recently, but it was an ad hoc process. The legislation apparently would codify that or a similar arrangement. Anyone may listen in on the telecon.

Second, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) will hold a hearing on Thursday morning on long term military budget challenges. It’s a broad topic and the witnesses are the service chiefs so it is difficult to anticipate the extent to which national security space issues will arise, but it would not be surprising. Most SASC hearings are webcast.

The House and Senate are in session this week and still discussing what to do about the FY2017 budget. They need to pass something by September 30 (probably a Continuing Resolution that lasts until mid-December, but we know the peril of trying to guess what Congress will do) and what to do about the rest of the fiscal year. Typically they end up passing one huge “omnibus” appropriations bill incorporating all 12 regular appropriations bills, but House Speaker Paul Ryan reportedly prefers several smaller “minibus” bills combining two or three at a time. As a former chairman of the House Budget Committee, he is well versed in budget matters, but there are critical top-level issues to resolve starting with the total amount of money that Congress should approve. The House and Senate reached agreement last fall on the total for FY2017, but very conservative Republicans did not vote in favor of it and want to more tightly constrain the amount for non-defense activities.

Moving even further East, the European Space Agency is sponsoring a “Space for Inspiration” conference at the London Science Museum on Wednesday-Thursday. It will be webcast on ESA’s website. ESA Director General Jan Woerner heads an impressive set of government, industry, academic and non-profit speakers from Europe, Japan, and the United States, including several current and former astronauts.

A bit further East, Euroconsult will hold its annual World Satellite Business Week in Paris Monday-Friday. The website does not indicate if any of the sessions will be webcast. The “week” includes the 20th Summit for Satellite Financing, the 13th Symposium on Satcom Market Forecasts, the 8th Summit on Earth Observation Business, and SMARTPlane 2016.

Vienna, Austria is the last stop on this week’s space policy journey. The European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) will hold a two-day (Thursday-Friday) symposium on Space for Sustainable Development.

Meanwhile, we’ll be keeping an ear out for any news on SpaceX’s investigation of the on-pad explosion on September 1. Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that it is the “most difficult and complex failure” the company has encountered.

Also, Chinese media report that the launch date for China’s second space station, Tiangong-2 is in the September 15-20 time period. It will launch on a Long March 2F from Jiuquan. The first launch of China’s new heavy lift Long March 5 from the new Wenchang launch site on Hainan Island is also coming up soon.

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 Events of Interest list.

Monday-Wednesday, September 12-14

National Academies ESAS Decadal Survey Weather Panel, Keck Center, 500 5th St., NW, Washington, DC (WebEx)

Monday-Friday, September 12-16

Euroconsult’s World Satellite Business Week 20th Summit for Satellite Financing (Sept. 12-15) 13th Symposium on SATCOM Market Forecasts (Sept. 15) 8th Summit on Earth Observation Business (Sept. 15-16) SMARTPlane 2016 (Sept. 14)



Tuesday, September 13

MSBR Luncheon Featuring NASA’s Jason Crusan, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, September 13-15

AIAA Space 2016, Long Beach Convention Center, Long Beach, CA (portions livestreamed, others posted later) Brill Lecture featuring Wanda Austin, President and CEO, Aerospace Corporation, Thursday, 6:30 pm Pacific (9:30 pm Eastern) Livestreamed



Wednesday, September 14

COMSTAC, virtual, 3:00-4:00 pm ET (dial-in available)

Senate Aerospace Caucus Reception, Johnson Room (Room 211), U.S. Capitol, 5:30 – 7:00 pm ET

Wednesday-Thursday, September 14-15

Thursday, September 15

Friday, September 16

Saturday, September 17

Women in Aviation and Space Family Day on the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm ET

Note: this article was updated on September 12.