FAA expects revised launch regulations to be completed next fall

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — The head of the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial space office says he expects to have updated commercial launch and reentry regulations completed by next fall, but hasn’t decided if there will be another draft of the rules published before then.
In an Oct. 9 speech at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) here, Wayne Monteith, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the FAA, said his office is expending significant resources to review comments submitted on the draft rule published in April.
That draft, formally known as a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), garnered significant feedback from the commercial launch industry and other industry observers, many of whom were critical with the overall direction of the rule that’s intended to streamline the licensing process. Monteith said that more than 150 comments were submitted, as well as more than 100 questions seeking clarification about the rule, by the time the public comment period closed in August.
“The comments, as you can imagine, went across the entire spectrum,” he said. Some offered line-by-line comments of the NPRM, while others simply dismissed it as “terrible” without much additional detail. “Not quite as helpful.”
The FAA is ...