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Commercial space vehicles face obstacles

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- The post-Sept. 11 shift in worldwide priorities, as well as the resignation of NASA's administrator, will hurt efforts to enlarge the market for commercial space transport, officials said Thursday at an FAA meeting.

The Federal Aviation Administration headquarters hosted a meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), which helps formulate federal policies to support development of U.S. commercial launch vehicles. Only 11 percent of fiscal year 2001 launches used U.S. boosters, lagging far behind Europe (45 percent) and Russia (33 percent), the FAA said. The figures do not include multi-national launches.

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Changes in the worldwide economy after Sept. 11 will further hurt the short-term commercial launch market, said Livingston Holder, COMSTAC chairman and a senior manager for advanced space products at Boeing.

"Commercial satellite providers will delay or even cancel (launch) orders," Holder told the meeting. "This makes our future no different that our past, however ... when finances improve and unmet service demand becomes too great, orders will come forward in greater numbers."

The FAA licenses U.S.-related commercial satellite launches and other space activity. Planning and operational control for this resides in the office of Patricia Smith, FAA's associate administrator for commercial space transportation.

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Smith said the terrorist attacks have raised the threat level for launch sites, vehicles and assets, including the ships that make up the Sea Launch company's floating spaceport.

"I've created a workgroup to examine security as it relates to commercial launch sites and operations," Smith said. "Our initial focus will be concerns related to FAA-licensed launch sites ... there's also the issue of security for current and future launch and re-entry sites that aren't on Federal facilities."

Smith's office works closely with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on research matters, as well as marketing the idea of commercial space transport, she told United Press International. Smith said neither Wednesday's resignation of NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin nor the aftermath of Sept. 11 should affect that work.

"Given some of the changes in our country's need for assured access to space, I can't imagine how commercial launch vehicles would not continue to play a key role, and that NASA would share that view," Smith told UPI.

Smith's take on things is not how Capitol Hill sees it, however. The COMSTAC meeting's congressional briefing made it plain the process of replacing Goldin could put NASA's commercial launch vehicle programs on hold. The ongoing International Space Station cost overruns could also eat away NASA's resources for other matters.

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The meeting also discussed how best to use existing FAA regulations to help companies more easily flight-test commercial replacements for the Space Shuttle, commonly called reusable launch vehicles. The regulations are meant to cover the basic RLV concept and not specific technologies, according to an early draft.

The RLV rules would follow principles similar to those for testing experimental aircraft, including flights over uninhabited areas. One difference might be that RLV test flights could carry revenue-generating cargo, something not possible with experimental aircraft.

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