Brings Long Track Record Of Human Spaceflight Support To The Effort

The academic-industry team that has been selected to support a new FAA Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation includes a company with a long history of supporting manned spaceflights. Wyle, an industry affiliate of the team led by Stanford University, University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, has assisted nore than two-thirds of all people who have traveled in space through its technical, medical and engineering staffs.

The FAA center is a partnership of academia, industry, and government, developed for the purpose of creating a world-class consortium that will address current and future challenges for commercial space transportation.

Wyle will provide subject matter expertise in the areas of space medicine, human spaceflight training and human spaceflight operations in support of a variety of research projects intended to assist the FAA's Office of Commercial Spaceflight in its role as the regulator for commercial spaceflight operations in the United States.

"Commercial space flight is ready to play a greater role in the nation's space program," said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt. "Universities working with industry partners will fuel the research necessary to help keep us in the forefront of both technology and safety in space."

Called the Center of Excellence for Commercial Space Transportation, the new center is expected to begin operations this month. The research and development efforts will include four major research areas: space launch operations and traffic management; launch vehicle systems, payloads, technologies, and operations; commercial human space flight; and space commerce (including space law, space insurance, space policy and space regulation).

The FAA will enter into 50-50 cost-sharing cooperative agreements to establish the partnerships, with plans to invest at least $1 million per year for the initial five years of the center's operations.

The U.S. space program has three sectors - civil, military and commercial. The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation is responsible for licensing, regulating and promoting the commercial sector space industry.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.wylelabs.com