Congress is expected to decide in the next week whether to extend current restrictions on regulating the safety of commercial human spaceflight occupants.
House and Senate negotiators are working to finalize a new long-term Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill that would extend and modify existing authorities for the agency set to expire March 8. Congress previously passed two short-term stopgap extensions of provisions that had been set to expire last October. Among the provisions expected in the reauthorization bill is an extension of the “learning period” limiting the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, or AST, from regulating safety of people who fly on commercial spacecraft.
The FAA has argued in the past that the learning period should be allowed to expire, arguing that doing so would give the agency the ability to start the process of developing safety regulations while noting that enacting new regulations would be a process lasting several years, rather than immediately after the learning period expires.
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