WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum to help drastically boost U.S. commercial space launches.
The Memorandum, which repeals an outdated National Space Transportation Policy, aims more than 1,000 rocket launches and reentries on American soil annually by 2030.
It directs agencies to incentivize co-development of space transportation infrastructure with private sector partners, expedite permitting and environmental reviews, develop fair and transparent cost recovery policies for common space services and infrastructure, and develop range scheduling criteria and publish range schedules to maximize allocation of launch resources.
The Memorandum directs the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Interior, in coordination with the Secretary of War and the Administrator of NASA, to identify future additional space transportation infrastructure locations, including additional launch and reentry sites. It also designates priority airspace for critical space launch corridors and integration of space transportation activities into air traffic control modernization efforts.
Under the Memo, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology has been directed to coordinate interagency efforts to develop and implement a space transportation industrial base strategy that promotes and maintains America's space transportation industry, streamlines procurement, and implements relevant space security strategies.
The Memorandum directs the NASA Administrator to facilitate commercial transportation to and from the moon, to facilitate commercial robotic access to Mars, and to explore commercial avenues to send humans to and from Mars.
The new policy will open new economic opportunities, such as high-paying aerospace manufacturing jobs and decrease the price for developing and deploying new space systems, according to the White House.
Enabling next-generation space capabilities will give Americans better positioning, navigation, and timing services for precision agriculture, more accurate weather forecasts for safe and predictable airline travel, and ubiquitous satellite-enabled communications for global broadband internet access, it added.
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