Urgent Action Required: Securing US Competitiveness in the Space Race, Senators Stress

Last week, Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Eric Schmitt urged the head of the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial spaceflight office to accelerate the approval of commercial space launches. They warned that the current pace of approvals could jeopardize the United States' competitive advantage in the new space race. The lawmakers pressed FAA associate administrator Kelvin Coleman to take action to eliminate red tape and reduce delays in processing launch and reentry licenses.

is essential for the FAA and other federal agencies as U.S. commercial spaceflight companies and China's state-backed space industry expand. The senators stressed the need for adaptation to support American innovation and counter adversarial threats in space in their letter dated November 14th.

The Office of Commercial Space Transportation under the FAA is tasked with ensuring public safety and approving an increasing number of commercial space launches, which have quadrupled in just four years. This year, the FAA has already issued 104 launch licenses, compared to 26 in 2019.

The senators called for NASAs commercial partners engaged in the agency's primary human spaceflight program to be identified in their letter, and urged Coleman to expedite "high priority missions such as bringing Americans back to the moon."

Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Eric Schmitt urged the FAA associate administrator in a letter to take immediate action to cut through bureaucracy and speed up the approval process for launch and return to Earth licenses.

SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, is developing the Starship, a lunar lander that will transport astronauts to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program. At a recent hearing before the Senate space and science subcommittee, a senior SpaceX executive accused government regulators of hindering the company's progress on the Starship, a critical component of NASA's Artemis program and the most powerful rocket ever constructed.

William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president for build and reliability, expressed frustration, stating that the company had been prepared for over a month to launch the next Starship test flight, but was unable to do so due to regulations and reviews. He emphasized that licensing, including environmental reviews, often takes longer than rocket development, and declared that this situation should never occur and is only worsening.

SpaceX faced an extensive environmental review by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and a safety review by the FAA following the explosion of its moon rocket during the first test flight in April. However, after receiving approval from regulators, the company successfully completed a second test flight last week.

In a letter sent the day before the FAA approved Starship's second test flight license, Chairwoman Sinema and Senator Schmitt expressed concern to Coleman about the potential for regulatory delays to allow China to narrow the gap with the US in space. China is pursuing a similar mission to NASA's Artemis program, aiming to land Chinese astronauts on the moon's same region and at a similar time. "It's no secret that the United States is in a space race with China, our primary economic and military rival. We cannot hinder ourselves in the race to the moon and Mars," stated Schmitt in an interview with CNN.

The senators are now asking Coleman to respond to several questions, including what additional resources he may need to accelerate the launch licensing process, by November 28.