WASHINGTON — An industry group says it’s against a White House proposal for regulating novel space activities, arguing it may very well be burdensome and confusing for firms and agencies.
The Nov. 27 letter from the Industrial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) to the chairs and rating members of the House Science Committee and Senate Commerce Committee, obtained by SpaceNews, comes because the House committee prepares to resume consideration of a bill with another approach to what is commonly called mission authorization.
The proposal from the White House’s National Space Council, published Nov. 15, would split responsibilities for industrial space activities not currently regulated by other agencies between the Departments of Commerce and Transportation. The Transportation Department, through the Federal Aviation Administration, would regulate human spaceflight activities beyond launch and reentry in addition to transportation of things through space or to the lunar surface. The Commerce Department, through the Office of Space Commerce, would handle other uncrewed spacecraft not regulated by the FAA, equivalent to satellite servicing and debris removal.
“We oppose the recently released National Space Council (NSPC) proposal on the subject in its current form, which fails to think about the points that CSF and lots of other stakeholders raised in the course of the NSPC listening sessions last yr,” CSF said in its letter to Congress.
The organization raised several concerns, including how responsibilities can be split between the 2 departments and the potential for “duplicative and conflicting” requirements between Commerce and Transportation. “For some operations, it’s unclear which agency would hold the authority to issue a relevant license, or if multiple licenses can be needed,” it stated.
The group is worried about giving additional responsibilities to the FAA’s industrial space transportation office without also significantly increasing its budget, noting that the office is struggling to maintain up with its current launch and reentry licensing. At an October hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee, industry officials really useful increasing that office’s budget to handle launch licensing work, with none discussion of it taking up additional responsibilities.
CSF was also fearful that the proposed mission authorization system could disrupt plans by NASA to shift from the International Space Station to industrial stations by the top of the last decade. “Introducing a bifurcated and unclear regulatory regime for industrial space stations,” the letter stated, “could risk U.S. leadership in low-Earth orbit.”
The organization said it supported proposals that will make the Office of Space Commerce the only real agency for providing mission authorization, backing a light-touch approach that included “presumption of authorization, supervision via self-certification, firm timelines for approval, and narrowly-defined and clear evaluation criteria.”
That appears just like what the Republican leadership of the House Science Committee offered in its Industrial Space Act of 2023, introduced Nov. 2. That bill would create a “certification” process for novel space activities led by the Office of Space Commerce, amongst other topics.
The committee held a markup session for the bill Nov. 15, which began lower than an hour after the White House released its own mission authorization proposal. Democratic members of the committee said they opposed the bill, arguing they need to wait to review the National Space Council proposal.
Committee chairman Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) recessed the hearing before a final vote, noting conflicts with other votes on the House floor “and the character of additional information that has grow to be available to us.” The markup would resume a while after the Thanksgiving break, he said.
The committee announced Nov. 28 that the markup of the industrial space bill and a separate, unrelated bill will resume Nov. 29 at 1:30 p.m. Eastern with final votes on each bills.