The Space Review by Jeff Foust 5/13/2024
Spaceflight is not routine in the same way as other modes of transportation, but it is becoming more commonplace. Through less than four and a half months of this year, there have been more than 90 orbital launches worldwide. Commercial launches, predominantly by SpaceX, have driven that growth, far offsetting declines by some other countries and companies.
That growth in commercial launch activity puts pressure and scrutiny on the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, which licenses and oversees commercial launches and reentries. At an April 23 meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), Kelvin Coleman, the FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, noted the office licensed 117 launches and 7 reentries in 2023. As of the meeting, the office had already licensed 43 launches and 3 reentries to date in 2024.
“If we continue at the current rate, we could see 150 operations this year,” he said, referring to the combination of launches and reentries. AST oversaw 17 operations in March alone, he said, breaking a monthly record of 13 operations set two months earlier. “Breaking records is becoming routine to all of us.”
Breaking records, though, raises concerns in industry about AST breaking down. Last fall, for example, officials with launch companies said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing they were concerned that AST lacked the resources and processes to keep up with growing demand as companies enter the market and ramp up launch activities. “AST’s workload over the next 12–24 months could result in the grounding of US space launch capability if action is not taken immediately,” warned SpaceX vice president Bill Gerstenmaier (see “The launch industry strains launch licensing”, The Space Review, October 23, 2023).
The FAA is taking steps to address those concerns. In February, Coleman announced at the annual FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference that the agency would establish a rulemaking committee to examine a new set of launch licensing regulations called Part 450. The regulations took effect in 2021 with the intent of streamlining the launch and reentry licensing process, but many companies have reported running into problems trying to work with them.
The Part 450 regulations, he said at the conference, were “developed pretty quickly, and we are all learning together as we go along. We’ve considered some opportunities, however, to smooth out a few wrinkles and enhance it to better meet its objectives.” He said the committee would start work by the fall to examine the regulations and offer recommendations for improving its implementation, which is critical as all launch companies must move over to Part 450 licenses by March 2026.
The office is working to hire more staff as well. Coleman said at the COMSTAC meeting that AST now has 146 employees with “more good people in the pipeline” to address licensing and related work. “Recruiting, hiring, and training are a top priority for us.”
In its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, the FAA requested $57.1 million for AST, up 36% from the $42 million it received in 2024. Much of that increase would go towards hiring more workers to deal with the increasing number of license applications and launch activity.
“AST needs additional licensing and permitting evaluators, environmental protection and stakeholder engagement specialists, and safety analysts to double its average annual new authorization determination capacity from 5 to 10 while keeping pace with requests for modifications and renewals,” the FAA stated in its budget documents.
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