A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/788229
Hi everyone. This week, the FAA held its 20th annual Commercial Space Transportation Conferenc e. Administrator Huerta talked about many of the history making feats that the commercial space industry accomplished last year. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin demonstrated the ability to reuse launch rockets, helping to overcome the cost barrier for space tr ansportation. Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic was issued its first launch license for the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to begin testing for human suborbital spaceflight launches. Efforts like these, and many others, are moving us closer toward developing an outer spa ce economy that could include things like space tourism, asteroid mining , and commercial space stations, and may support our national goal to land a human on Mars. Until now, space operations have been fairly rare, and we've accommodated them by blocking out large amounts of airspace. But in the coming years, we expect these operations to increase, become more complex , and launch from more places. We're working to safely integrate these operations as standard activity into the N ational A irspace S ystem. As part of this process, we have to maintain our current level of safety, and consider how space operations will impact traditional airspace users. In November 2016, we completed our ATO Commercial Space Integration Roadmap, a planning framework that enabl es us to meet the coming challenges head on. The Roadmap defines goals in areas such as: airspace usage policy and regulation, safety processes, training, procedures , and automation capabilities, and it determines the schedule by which we expect to accompl ish them. We currently have 27 Roadmap activities in progress and we expect to have 16 completed in calendar year 2017. Some of the near - term initiatives include creating introductory training to educate ATO personnel on space vehicle operations, and est ablishing reporting requirements for space safety events. One of our goals is to improve collaboration and coordination with space transportation operators. As launches increase, we expect that space operators will be part of our Collaborative Decision M aking structure, a daily process in which we communicate with airspace users and consider their needs so we can optimize traffic flow management. We're looking at ways to integrate real - time space vehicle position data into the FAA's air traffic manageme nt systems and how to calculate aircraft hazard areas and determine separation standards from these hazard areas. Toward this end, the FAA has been prototyping a tool called the Space Data Integrator, or SDI. The tool receives time - accurate data directly f rom the launch or reentry vehicle, and formats it for use by air traffic controllers. With this data, we can more accurately determine how much airspace we have to block off to ensure a safe launch or reentry operation. SDI could also help us release the b locked airspace more efficiently so it's available for other airspace users. These are just some of the many efforts we're working on. We want space operations to grow and be successful. The steps we're taking today will help make that a reality. Thanks everyone! Teri L. Bristol ATO Chief Operating Officer