LEO Commercialization Seen Having Regulatory Hurdles to Cross

The White House and Congress likely will wrestle for several years over ways to reduce regulatory burdens on getting into space, Venable policy adviser Jared Stout said at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics briefing Wednesday on low earth orbit commercialization. Mike French, Aerospace Industries Association vice president-space systems, said the expected LEO communications satellite boom and the promise it holds in lowering launch costs and increasing the number of launch companies should benefit other LEO space commercialization efforts if rules are adequate on issues like orbital debris and space traffic management. A burden for LEO commercialization is aged regulatory regimes that don't fit well with emerging technology, Stout said. He said space launch regulation is "trying to catch up from three decades of neglect." He said there's uncertainty on what agency's in charge of emerging on-orbit activities. Stout said space-based commercialization needs a "holy grail" application that's more affordable to be done in space than on Earth, or has better results in space, and that will accelerate commercialization efforts and investment. He said Congress will have to start deciding how to better use the International Space Station for commercial opportunities, and what comes after it. Making money in space is a question as investors typically want a five- to seven-year return on investment and space ventures can carry a 10- to 20-year horizon, French said. Near term, the biggest opportunities are in supporting human activity in space, he said. Longer term, possible markets include specialty materials manufacturing and in-orbit satellite assembly, he said. NASA has been particularly active in recent months trying to gin up commercial LEO activity by issuing a price list for ISS hosting astronauts and releasing appendices on revenue generation opportunities, French said. Venture capital won't start flowing until there's a clear product or service, said Cindy Martin-Brennan, director-stakeholder management, ISS National Lab. She advocated coordinated, multi-agency funding and better intellectual property assurance to businesses that want to do such space-based R&D.