What’s Happening in Space Policy October 11-17, 2026

What happened

During the Week The week begins tomorrow (Monday) with a holiday, Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and federal offices will be closed. The House and Senate are in recess, except for pro forma sessions, until after the midterm elections.

It’s a relatively quiet week, but some interesting and fun events are on tap. NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA’s Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos’s Andrey Fedyaev spent 237 days in space, 235 of them on the ISS, splashing down on Thursday, October 8.

Adenot is back home in Europe already. So it’s not clear how many will be there for the post-mission briefing, but hopefully all will participate in-person or virtually.