The third National Space Council meeting during the Biden-Harris Administration took place at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC on December 20, 2023.  The theme was international partnerships and representatives of all 33 signatories to the Artemis Accords were present. A contingent of U.S. Space Force Guardians was also there to celebrate the 4th birthday of the Space Force that day.

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the meeting, but did not preside over it. She left after her speech and her National Security Advisor, Phil Gordon, led the meeting.

In a break from tradition, the Vice President, who chairs the Space Council, was not the opening speaker.  Instead that honor went to Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, a member of the Artemis II crew, to highlight international cooperation.

The event began at 2:00 pm ET.  Two hours earlier, at noon, the White House publicly released two fact sheets and a new policy document in connection with the meeting.

• United States Novel Space Activities Authorization and Supervision Framework (companion to the legislative proposal sent to Congress on November 15, 2023)
• Fact Sheet: U.S. Novel Space Activities Authorization and Supervision Framework
• Fact Sheet: Strenthening U.S. International Partnerships

Afterwards, it released the text of Harris’s speech and the State Department released the text of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech.

• Remarks by Vice President Harris at a Meeting of the National Space Council
• Secretary Antony J. Blinken at a U.S. National Space Council Meeting

SpacePolicyOnline.com published two articles, one before the meeting based on the material released at noon, and one affer the meeting concluded:

• Harris to Announce International Lunar Astronaut, Mission Authorization Framework at Space Council Meeting
• International Partnerships, Mission Authorization, and Export Control Reform Highlight Space Council Meeting

The White House National Space Council’s Users’ Advisory Group (UAG) met virtually on December 1, 2023.

Chaired by Gen. Les Lyles (Ret.), the Group first heard from Valda Vikmanis Keller, Director of the State Department’s Office of Space Affairs, who explained the role the State Department plays in space diplomacy and ensuring the United States upholds its obligations under international law.

The UAG’s six subcommittees then reported on their activities since the last UAG meeting in February 2023. A number of white papers have been written with findings and recommendations, one of which urges that a single agency be assigned mission authorization responsibilities for regulating new commercial space activities. That is at odds with what the Space Council itself proposed in draft legislation sent to Congress on November 15, 2023.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the UAG meeting on December 6, 2023: UAG Endorses Single Agency for Mission Authorization. 

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel met in public session on January 11, 2022. As summarized by SpacePolicyOnline.com’s in “Safety Panel: NASA Urgently Must Define Its Future Role in Human Spaceflight,” ASAP said NASA is at an inflection point as it relies more and more on partnerships with the commercial sector. NASA “urgently must strategically define its future role and articulate a vision and principles to guide it for at least the next 20 years” especially with regard to the Artemis program to return astronauts to the lunar surface.

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel met on May 26, 2023.  As summarized in SpacePolicyOnline.com’s “NASA Safety Panel Urges Independent Review of Boeing’s Starliner Program,” ASAP urged NASA to appoint an independent panel to review Boeing’s commercial crew program that is developing the Starliner spacecraft to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station after new problems emerged just two months before the scheduled launch of the Crew Flight Test (CFT).

Days later Boeing announced an indefinte delay to the CFT.

The Aerospace Industries Association held a webinar on March 16, 2023 with three space policy experts discussing the FY2024 budget request for civil and commercial space. The primary topic was NASA’s request, especially for space science.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of their remarks on March 16, 2023: “Space Policy Experts Caution NASA Increase Merely Keeps Pace with Inflation.”

Speakers were:

• Mike French, Vice President for Space Systems, Aerospace Industries Association (AIA)
• Jean Toal Eisen, Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA)
• Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy, The Planetary Society

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held a public session on October 27, 2022 to report on its third quarter 2022 review of NASA programs.

Among its findings and recommendations was that the International Space Station is operating “at risk” because NASA and the other ISS partners do not have an executable plan to deorbit the space station safely in an emergency. The panel raised this issue previously and was presented with a conceptual plan in 2020 that it thought would be finalized imminently, but technical and operational challenges emerged and they are reopening the recommendation.

ASAP made a number of other findings about the ISS, the commercial crew program, and the Artemis program that are summarized in a SpacePolicyOnline.com article posted that day: NASA SAFETY PANEL WARNS ISS OPERATING “AT RISK” FOR LACK OF DEORBIT PLAN.

Vice President Kamala Harris held her second meeting of the National Space Council on September 9, 2022 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. No major decisions were made, but several tasks were assigned to Council members.

The three main topics were STEM education (as it was at the first meeting in December 2021), NASA’s human spaceflight program, and creating regulations for novel commercial space activities.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published two articles summarizing the meeting:

• Harris Asks Agencies for Proposals on Novel Commercial Space Regulation
• Space Council Discusses STEM, Human Spaceflight and Commercial Space Regulation

During the meeting, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves also announced that the Departement of Commerce and DOD just signed a Memorandum of Agreement spelling out their respective responsibilities in Space Situational Awareness/Space Traffic Management. SpacePolicyOnline.com reported on that in a separate article.

Vice President Kamala Harris held the first meeting of the National Space Council under her leadership on December 1, 2021 at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.

Hours prior to the meeting she released a “Space Priorities Framework” document identifing two priorities and actions to address them.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the meeting on December 1, 2021 as well as three related articles in advance.

• Space Council Condemns Russian ASAT Test, DOD CAlls for End To Debris-Creating Tests
• Biden-Harris Space Priorities Framework Calls for Robust Space Enterprise, Space Sustainability
• First Harris-Led National Space Council Meeting Set for Tomorrow
• Senators Urge Biden Administration Action on Space Debris

The 8th and last meeting of the White House National Space Council under the leadership of Vice President Mike Pence took place on December 9, 2020 at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), FL.  The two major announcements were release of a new National Space Policy and naming 18 NASA astronauts who now comprise the Artemis Team or Artemis Cadre of astronauts who will go to the Moon.

Immediately prior to the meeting, Pence stopped at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjacent to KSC, and announced its new name is Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Patrick Air Force Base, which manages CCAFS, is now Patrick Space Force Base.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published three articles summarizing the events:

• Trump Administration Issues New National Space Policy
• New Names for CCAFS and Patrick Air Force Base
• NASA Picks 18 Astronauts for its First Artemis Cadre

NOAA’s Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES) held a three-day meeting in June 2020 (June 23-25).  The main topic of discussion was the new regulations for the commercial satellite remote sensing industry that were published in May 2020.

Among the speakers were three members of Congress (Cruz, Babin and Horn), Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs, Director of NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce Kevin O’Connell, Executive Secretary of the White House National Space Council Scott Pace, and DOD’s Principle Director of Space Policy John Hill.

SpacePolicyOnline.com published a summary of the meeting on June 25, 2020:  New Remote Sensing Regulations Great Improvement, But Devil is in the Details.