Res Communis

FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation Issues First Safety Approval

by P.J. Blount with the blog faculty

From the FAA/AST:

FAA Commercial Space Transportation Safety Approval

The Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has issued the first-ever safety approval for a Spaceflight Training System. The approval was granted on April 7, 2010 to the National Aerospace Training and Research Center (NASTAR) of Southampton, Pennsylvania, for a centrifuge simulator with the ability to expose flight crew members to the G-forces they will experience during suborbital flights.

The approval process involved a thorough review of the design and operation of the NASTAR STS-400 simulator and on-site observation by AST personnel. NASTAR plans to offer its space flight simulation training to launch operators to support commercial suborbital space flights.