The House Appropriations Committee’s transportation, housing and urban development bill would allocate $21.6 million in fiscal 2018 funds to the Federal Aviation Administration’s commercial space transportation office, Space News reported Tuesday.The proposed budget in the draft appropriations bill reflects a $1.7 million increase from AST’s funds under the omnibus spending measure for fiscal 2017.
AST oversees the licensing process for commercial space launches and re-entries and issues permits for flight tests of reusable suborbital vehicles.
The office has licensed 15 launches since October 2016 and those include 10 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches and three United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V missions.
The House’s appropriations subpanel was scheduled to mark up the bill Tuesday, the report added.
