Commercial Spaceflight Safety Committee (2024-2027)

Committee Members  

Objectives/scope of the committee

The Committee shall focus on the safety and regulatory policy issues related to commercial robotic and human spaceflight. The focus will be on commercial human flight and will entertain unmanned concepts as they relate to the development of commercial human systems or on a case by case basis. The committee shall identify common needs and issues, share efficiencies, and identify and develop opportunities to advance best practices to maximize safety and international compatibility for commercial human spaceflight endeavors. It is important to state the goal of the Committee is not to create regulations or standards but rather to exchange information between international players on current issues in the safety and regulatory policy issues of the developing global commercial space transportation community.

The Commercial Human Spaceflight Safety Committee activities shall be devoted to identifying, assessing, and promulgating effective means of establishing best practices for and verifying the safety of various types of human rated transportation systems, operating procedures, and support operations, and the appropriate public policies supporting those activities, as they pertain to supporting the development of a safe and successful commercial human spaceflight industry.

• Regulatory & Policy Issues: Explore existing and developing frameworks for domestic and international space policy and regulatory oversight related to the commercial space transportation industry. Specifically, discuss launch, reentry, and other space vehicles capable of carrying humans to facilitate international operations. Encourage and facilitiate open communication on these issues between international players to enhance collective knowledge and inform decision makers.

• Safety: Explore safety issues currently affecting or upcoming issues for the commercial space transportation industry. Includes discussions on operations, launch vehicles, crew training, and other topics as necessary from the standpoint of increasing mutual understanding of issues and various approaches to their resolution.

• Pilot and Crew Best Safety Practices: Discuss operations with international capable spaceports management and control operations. Included are on-going hardware and software developments and new concepts for launch, rendezvous, in-orbit servicing, reentry, landing, safety, and rescue that affect the safety and performance of the pilot and crew. Also discuss associated procedures and practices by crew that relate to the above systems.

• Safe Ground Operations & Other Related Safety Issues for Spaceports: Discus the technologies and procedures necessary to support commercial human space transportation vehicles, advanced concepts of reusable and expendable commercial space transportation through spaceports, including winged stages, single stage to orbit and other advanced space transportation systems. Explore and discuss systems for transferring payloads from one spaceport or space location to various destinations, including the safe and efficient servicing of human rated systems. Discuss the above issues with safety as the central theme.

The Committee shall collaborate and cooperate as appropriate with the following IAF committees and various others on an as needed basis.

• [Human Space Endeavours Committee]
• Space Exploration Committee
• Space Systems Committee
• Space Transportation Committee