Lobbying has begun to create a new International Civil Aviation Organisation directorate to handle commercial spaceflight. Montreal, Canada-based ICAO is a United Nations agency responsible for codifying procedures and techniques for international air navigation.
The US Federal Aviation Administration's office of commercial space transportation, senior space agency representatives and the US Air Force were presented with draft spaceflight directorate proposals produced by the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) legal and regulatory committee at the IAASS annual meeting in Chicago last month.
ICAO member state representatives are to be sent the proposals in September. IAASS president Tommaso Sgobba expects the process to form an ICAO spaceflight directorate will take years.
Under the proposals ICAO's mandate would be extended to space traffic management and safety up to and including geostationary orbit. The idea has been spurred by space tourism developments such as Space Adventures' trips to the International Space Station and Virgin Galactic's planned suborbital service.
An international regulatory framework would allow space tourism to expand globally by avoiding multiple or conflicting national spaceflight certification schemes and pave the way for point-to-point transport using suborbital vehicles.
Source: Flight International
