Commerce AST Adding Staff, Aiming at Faster Decision-Making

The Transportation Department's Office of Commercial Space Transportation, known as AST, is ramping up staffing and will have middle managers increasingly focused on the day-to-day tasks to allow quicker decision-making, AST acting Administrator Kelvin Coleman told the FAA's Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee Tuesday. AST has 110 staffers now and is authorized for 126, he said. The FY 2023 presidential budget request would give it more funding to further add staff, he said. AST staff said its adoption in April of a "complete enough" application process for space launches will be followed this fall by testing of the application portal. Coleman said the "complete enough" approach was aimed at speeding approvals, and streamlining AST's pre-application consultation process. Under "complete enough," AST does a quantitative analysis of an application's contents; if the material in the application is sufficient, the evaluation starts, he said. The FAA is moving toward an electronic system for launches that is akin to the electronic filing of flight plans, said acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen. He said the agency is reviewing software and vendors of electronic licensing portals, aiming for beta testing by year's end. Asked about concerns about the FAA over-regulating nascent commercial activity, Nolen said its primary focus on safety “doesn't mean we can't be innovative.” The U.S. is looking at its Article VI obligations under the Outer Space Treaty, about national responsibility for their national activities in outer space, as going from a focus on authorizations to more of a focus on supervision, with that being the route to space sustainability, said Diane Howard, National Space Council commercial space policy director. She said there's a need for a standardized process to track novel and nontraditional space missions, and a whole-of-government approach.