Thursday’s meeting of the White House National Space Council will be livestreamed according to the office of Vice President Mike Pence, who chairs the Council. The space policy community is eagerly awaiting this first meeting of the Council under President Trump. Most of the Council’s members are expected to attend.

President Trump reestablished the Space Council in June and designated Pence as its chair. This first meeting on October 5, 2017 will take place at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, near Dulles Airport.

The Council was created by law in the FY1989 NASA Authorization Act (P.L. 100-685). President George H. W. Bush established a Space Council by Executive Order 12675 during his presidency (January 1989-January 1993), which was chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama chose not to fund or staff a council during their presidencies, using the National Security Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy to coordinate U.S. space policy instead.

Trump’s Executive Order sets the Council’s membership as follows:

Vice President, who shall be Chairman

Secretary of State

Secretary of Defense

Secretary of Commerce

Secretary of Transportation

Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Director of National Intelligence

Secretary of Homeland Security

Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

heads of other executive departments and agencies and other senior officials within the Executive Office of the President as determined by the Chairman

Scott Pace is the Executive Secretary of the Council. Jared Stout and Michael Mineiro have been brought on as staff members. By law, the staff is limited to “not more than seven persons … headed by a civilian executive secretary.” There is no legal restriction on how many may be detailed from government agencies, however.

Confirmed participants in Thursday’s meeting according to Pence’s office are:

Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States and Chairman of the National Space Council

Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State

James Mattis, Secretary of Defense

Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce

Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation

Mick Mulvaney, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget

H.R. McMaster, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Michael Kratsios, Deputy Chief Techology Office of the United States (and de facto Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy)

Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence

Elaine Duke, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security

Robert Lightfoot, Acting Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Gen. Paul Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Pence’s office said today that the meeting will be livestreamed at https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/vice-president-pence-hosts-national-space-council-meeting. The agenda has not been released yet.