With sights set on powering short-duration private astronaut missions, or PAMs, to the International Space Station in the near future, NASA wants insurance, launch service and other interested providers and stakeholders to weigh in on the legal- and accountability-check it’s crafted to govern the trips.
The space agency on Wednesday extended the deadline for responses to a recent request for information soliciting feedback on its newly proposed Private Astronaut Mission Liability Framework. Originally set for July 18, interested parties now have until Sept. 1 to respond.
“NASA may use the results of this RFI to modify the proposed liability framework, to guide an assessment of appropriate insurance amounts and types of insurance required, or to otherwise inform the development of the implementation approach with respect to PAMs generally and liability framework for such missions in particular,” officials wrote in the request.
As part of a broad, multifaceted scheme to promote commercial activity in the low Earth orbit—deemed NASA's Vision for Low-Earth Orbit Economy and unveiled in June 2019—the agency hopes to enable privately-funded commercial spaceflights through which private astronauts can “conduct approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station (or in a commercial segment attached to the station),” according to an announcement of the plans. In June, Virgin Galactic revealed it signed a Space Act Agreement to produce a “new private orbital astronaut readiness program” for NASA, which wo ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
