The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is responsible for licensing the companies that charter private space transportation. To issue a license for commercial space travel, the FAA is required under the National Environmental Policy Act to assess how their licensees’ activities may impact the environment.

FAA policy requires before issuing a license for space travel that the agency assess 14 separate categories, including noise, coastal resources, and land use, for potential environmental impact. In addition to this environmental review, the FAA also assesses how commercial space transport may affect airplane airspace – whether it will require delays or the rerouting of airplanes to avoid the path of a launch vehicle. While the FAA has no authority to approve or deny a license application for space travel based on the effects on airspace, it does identify and plan for these effects while ensuring their respective operations meet certain safety criteria.

On April 24, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a study on the potential environmental impact from commercial space transportation. In that study, the GAO determined that data from the FAA found no potential significant levels of environmental impacts from launch and reentry activities and that any environmental concerns could be mitigated with post-launch activities. Specifically, the study found that emissions from fuel burn during takeoff could produce short-term air-quality impacts, however, these impacts were indistinguishable from the effect of ongoing flight operations in the area.

Since the first U.S.-licensed commercial space launch in 1989, the industry has expanded into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. The commercial space transportation industry emerged in the 1990s and was primarily used to launch commercial satellites and transport cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). Over the last decade, growing interest in commercial space is about realizing new possibilities for the industry, including space tourism. To a large extent, the enthusiasm for space transport has been building.

There has been an extraordinary increase in the number of U.S. licensed commercial launches and reentries, with 124 in 2023, compared with just 9 in 2012. There are also projections of total launch and reentry operations rising as high as 288 by the year 2027. This rapidly growing industry is inspiring scientists, engineers, teachers, and a whole generation to imagine entirely new possibilities for the future of space and the finding of no significant environmental impact on space transport could be another catalyst for growth.