Regulators Seen Struggling to Keep Up With Commercial Space Industry
With the rocketing number of commercial space launches in the U.S. and mushrooming potential commercial space activities, a big challenge for regulators is keeping up with the commercial space industry, experts said at a Federal Aviation Administration commercial spaceflight conference Tuesday. That proliferation of commercial launch activity means the FAA needs to change how it licenses launches, Administrator Michael Huerta said, calling the current system “not sustainable" because of the large amount airspace that gets blocked off for each launch. The nation’s airspace system is built for traditional aircraft, and each commercial space launch license “is essentially an exception,” Huerta said.
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The FAA licensed or permitted 17 launches or re-entries in 2016, and expects to deal with as many as 43 this year, between 63 and 80 in 2018 and 75 to 89 to 2019, said George Nield, associate administrator-commercial space transportation. He said the regulatory framework needs to be streamlined to accommodate non-launch space activities like high-altitude platform stations and carrier aircraft.
The U.S. under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty is obligated to authorize and supervise commercial outer space activities, but the treaty gives wide latitude on how that could be done and doesn't necessarily require government regulation, said House Space Subcommittee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas. "Government’s role isn’t to give you permission to do anything," Babin said, making a pitch for such approaches as tort law, self-regulation and public-private partnerships to govern commercial activities in space. He warned of a too-onerous regulatory framework scaring away the U.S. space industry to more business-friendly nations and said he hopes the Trump administration will prioritize a streamlining of the space regulatory framework in ways that would also satisfy the country's international obligations.
Babin raised similar regulatory red flags about the FAA taking over space traffic management duties from the Defense Department (see 1604070041). He said still-unanswered questions include whether such an authority shift would be cheaper, whether there are other actors -- such as NASA or the Commerce Department -- that would make more sense, and whether a private market for space situational awareness data might be a better approach.
The various agency reports to Congress mandated in 2015’s U.S Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (CSLCA) are likely good road maps for the kinds of space-related legislation that the new Congress could consider, said Tom Hammond, staff director of the Space Subcommittee. Among the reports required by CSLCA was one from the Transportation Department on commercial space launch liability claims, one from the Office of Science and Technology Policy on recommendations for regulatory oversight of commercial space activities, and DOT/DOD jointly studying the feasibility of making space situational awareness data publicly available. On possible space-related legislation for the new Congress, Senate Space Subcommittee Staff Director Nick Cummings said Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has a priority of streamlining the regulatory process for launches.