The FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) is a branch of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) responsible for regulating and promoting the U.S. commercial space transportation industry. AST licenses private sector launches of space payloads on expendable launch vehicles and commercial space launch facilities. It also sets insurance requirements and ensures compliance with U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Key activities include licensing launches and reentries, regulating launch site operations, and working to integrate commercial space operations into the National Airspace System.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The FY2026 funding package includes budgets for the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Savannah Horton works with the FAA’s safety analysis division in the Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Senator Ted Cruz supports moving the Office of Commercial Space Transportation out of the FAA to improve licensing processes.
The panel suggested moving the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation back into a standalone office under the Secretary of Transportation.
The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is the FAA office that issued the 2024-12-17 license modification for Flight 7.
The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation is involved in the regulatory approval process for SpaceX's Flight 5.
Dan Murray is the executive director of operational safety at the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
Concerns have been raised about how much attention an independent Office of Commercial Space Transportation would receive from the Department of Transportation's leadership.
The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation licensed 117 launches and 7 reentries in 2023.
The FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) unanimously approved a recommendation on 2024-04-23 to move the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) out of the FAA and make it a standalone organization directly under the Secretary of Transportation.
The Office of Commercial Space Transportation was established in 1984 as a standalone office under the Secretary of Transportation.
The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation published a notice in the Federal Register on 2024-04-17 requiring that spacecraft designed to return to Earth already have a reentry license before launch approval.
The $57,130,000 request for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation represents a 36% increase from the $42,018,000 the office received in the final fiscal year 2024 spending bill.
The FAA plans to allocate $7,900,000 of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation budget increase toward hiring additional staff to support launch and reentry licensing and oversight.
The Office of Commercial Space Transportation had about 140 employees as of February 2024.
The Office of Commercial Space Transportation is seeking $2,600,000 in new funding for orbital human spaceflight oversight to hire staff and bring in contractors to begin developing orbital human spaceflight safety rules and create a joint working group with NASA.
The Federal Aviation Administration requested $57,130,000 for its Office of Commercial Space Transportation in its fiscal year 2025 budget proposal released 2024-03-11.
The House version of the bill had included an additional $5,000,000 for the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) to improve launch and reentry processes, but that $5,000,000 was removed from the final bill.
Nick Cummings, senior director of program development at SpaceX, indicated during the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference on 2024-02-21 that the upcoming Starship launch will include a propellant transfer test within Starship.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation closed the New Shepard mishap investigation on 2023-09-26 and identified 21 corrective actions for Blue Origin to undertake before flying again.