THE WOODLANDS, Texas — The Federal Aviation Administration is asking for a significant increase in budget for its commercial space office in order to meet the growing demand for launches and to prepare for potential new regulatory responsibilities.
The FAA, in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal released March 11, requested $57.13 million for its Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST. This is a 36% increase from the $42.018 million AST received in the final fiscal year 2024 spending bill passed last week.
A large part of that increase, $7.9 million, would be used to hire more staff to support launch and reentry licensing and oversight. The FAA stated in its budget documents that AST needs more 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 up with requests for modifications and renewals.
The funding would be utilized to hire more staff and contractors to support licensing and oversight work. The resources would also allow AST to address other areas, such as potential changes to streamlined launch regulations known as Part 450 that have been criticized by industry as being difficult to implement. The FAA announced in February it would create an aerospace rulemaking committee to study potential changes to Part 450.
The FAA stated in the budget request that “AST has already recognized some shortcomings in the part 450 rule, as well as gaps in standards and guidance, that could be readily resolved with additional resources to support policy development and rulemaking.
While AST has expanded significantly in recent years, it is still struggling to keep up with the much higher pace of commercial launch activities. Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, stated at a Feb. 21 media roundtable that “We’ve seen increased demand for our services over the last few years. Right now we’re at about 140 people and they’re all pedaling as fast as they can.”
He said AST expected to grow to 157 people by the end of 2024, but was looking for additional funding in 2025 to hire more staff. “The workflow has gotten to the point that more hands on deck will certainly be helpful for us.”
The funding increase would also be allocated to additional potential regulatory work. AST is seeking $2.6 million in new funding for “orbital human spaceflight oversight,” hiring staff and bringing in contractors “to begin the process of developing orbital human spaceflight safety rules” and create a joint working group with NASA on human spaceflight safety.
The FAA is presently restricted in how it can regulate the safety of occupants on commercial spacecraft under a “learning period” enacted in 2004 and extended several times. The learning period is now set to expire in May, but is expected to be extended, perhaps for up to eight years, in a new comprehensive FAA reauthorization bill.
“At the expiration of the learning period, AST plans to develop and execute a regulatory scheme for occupant safety during launch, reentry, and suborbital operations,” the budget document states, with the new oversight activity intended to prepare for that.
The proposal wants almost $3.5 million for overseeing commercial space activities that are not currently overseen by the FAA or other agencies. A proposal from the White House in November would divide responsibilities for mission authorization. The FAA and the Office of Space Commerce would share responsibilities for mission authorization, with the FAA handling human spaceflight activities and in-space transportation. However, a House bill would give mission authorization solely to the Office of Space Commerce.
In the budget request, the FAA said the funds would be used to hire staff for mission authorization activities and to create regulations. The FAA must establish a new regulatory structure, including pre-application information, requirements for applications, review standards, and an inspection and compliance scheme, once authorized by Congress.
The FAA's budget proposal seeks an additional $7 million in funding for its Air Traffic Organization (ATO) related to commercial space activities. The funding would enable the ATO to hire more staff to support airspace coordination for launches.
The current budget request noted that ATO only has four fulltime positions dedicated to commercial space operations despite the increasing number of launches. The funding would be used to hire more staff and develop automation capabilities to expand the ATO's capabilities.
