Wayne Monteith, the Federal Aviation Administration’s new associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said during the Commercial Space Transportation Conference that the government shutdown impacted the release of proposed legislation, Space News reported Wednesday. Monteith noted that the five-week shutdown delayed the release of proposed rules on licensing commercial launch and re-entry activities, including launches from multiple locations.
\n\n
The Space Policy Directive 2 issued in May 2018 scheduled the proposed regulations to be released by Feb. 1. The FAA official said he promises “transparent and open†leadership seeking to “over-communicate†with industry as part of the efforts to propose new regulations. Monteith is the only FAA representative that spoke during the conference due to the agency’s decision to catch up with licensing backlog and related operations following the partial shutdown.