Safety

Unlike NASA, which is a civil research and
development agency, the FAA is a regulatory agency
responsible for providing a safe and efficient aerospace
system. This responsibility includes regulating
commercial space transportation. That’s where the
FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation
(AST) comes into play.
The FAA is responsible for regulating all private
launch and reentry activities and the operations of
launch and reentry sites. This task includes all commercial
launches or reentries within U.S. borders
or outside of our borders when conducted by U.S.
entities. All commercial launches and reentries
must be licensed by the FAA, but suborbital reusable
rockets and launch vehicles have the option to
operate under an experimental permit. Launch and
reentry site operators must also be licensed in order
to operator their commercial “spaceports.”
Airports of the Future
FAA licensed launch and reentry sites are commonly
referred to as spaceports. Each spaceport is
specifically licensed according to the type of launch
and reentry operations conducted, (e.g., a vertical
rocket launch or a horizontal space-plane takeoff
and landing.)
Every spaceport is different, and each is typically
designed to support specific types of vehicles.
Consequently, the FAA considers each request
for approval on a case-by-case basis to ensure
public safety and proper integration into the NAS.
Some spaceports, like Mojave Air and Space Port
(KMHV), are collocated with a public airport.
Others, like Spaceport America (9NM9) in New
Mexico, are built for a specific purpose.
There are currently 10 active spaceports with FAA
launch site operator licenses, which are located in
Florida, Texas, California, New Mexico, Alaska, Virginia,
and Oklahoma. An operator license authorizes
launches or reentries from one site within a range of
operational parameters of the same family of vehicles
that are transporting specified classes of payloads or
performing specified activities. An operator license
remains in effect for five years from the date it’s issued.
Flying into Space
Though the FAA does not offer an astronaut
certificate or rating, crew are required to have vehicle
training tailored to the specific operation. When
a piloted vehicle is travelling through the NAS to
and from a spaceport, the pilot or remote operator
must have at least a FAA private pilot certificate with
A spaceport is marked with a magenta rocket symbol on VFR
aeronautical charts.
Photo courtesy Mojave Air and Space Port
May/June 2016 FAA Safety Briefing 29