Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Research and Development Program

The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has developed and has executed a disciplined, structured research and development program for many years now. Under Title 49 United States Code section 701, the FAA’s Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation has the responsibility for ensuring public safety and protection of property for commercial space transportation operations. In carrying out this responsibility, AST has developed a number of safety and regulatory initiatives. The primary purpose of AST research is to support the development of commercial space transportation safety regulations. The aerospace safety research community is constantly challenged to identify, conduct, and deliver credible safety research products that respond to the regulatory and oversight needs of AST. A credible research program requires that the AST have a structure that accommodates, and is supportive of, research using sound program management. The structure of the FAA/AST’s Research and Development (R&D) effort ensures that there is a clearly defined and understood process to do the following: 1. Collect and evaluate research requirements from the FAA’s Commercial Space Transportation (AST) organizations, manufacturers, operators, and other credible sources. 2. Identify and prioritize research requirements as they relate to legislative requirements and the development of safety regulations. 3. Present prioritized research requirements to AST management annually. 4. Evaluate the priority of pop-up requirements within the context of the total program. 5. Maintain current knowledge of ongoing research programs. 6. Communicate research results to the AST organizations, other FAA Lines of Business (LOBs), other Government agencies and industry. 7. Provide an FAA safety research perspective and identify areas of overlap and/or future cooperation with other organizations conducting related research activities, e.g., National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Defense (DOD), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and related International research organizations. To this end, AST developed a process for the successful application of research resources to clearly identify and systematically prioritize safety research requirements. Research requirements support FAA strategic goals, AST mission needs, identification of threats to aerospace safety, and the introduction or application of new technologies. AST sponsors research to support the identification, validation or development of knowledge, technologies, systems, and procedures required to meet the goals of its safety regulatory and oversight programs. This research will allow AST to take appropriate regulatory actions, evaluate licensing and permitting data submittals, investigate continued flightworthiness issues, and validate methodologies and analytical tools. AST conducted research is technical work that does the following: 1. Provides information to develop new rules, guidance material, policies, procedures, and systems that will improve safety and, where possible, enhance cost effectiveness for the international civil aerospace community. 2. Supports licensing and permitting efforts with engineering and human factors studies that provide data needed to judge the adequacy of methodologies and analysis tools used to demonstrate compliance with flightworthiness and operational standards. 3. Evaluates the effectiveness of existing AST regulations, policies, and guidance materials, including the engineering envelopes used. 4. Determines and evaluates the causal factors of accidents and incidents. 5. Evaluates the applicability of regulations, guidance material, and policy to maintain or improve flightworthiness standards when approving new materials and technologies.