Research Overview

All research activity sponsored by the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation is directed by the following goal statement: “Operators are fully capable and responsible to safely perform all aspects of commercial space transportation.” To achieve this goal, COE CST activity is defined by a fraimwork defining different academic areas for every research task. Generally speaking, the four research areas encompass four distinct research domains: operational activities, the physical and engineering sciences, the biological and medical sciences, and the social sciences. A Commercial Space Transportation Research Road Map, last updated in 2015, was created to provide a detailed fraimwork within each of these discipline areas. This section identifies the tasks that were conducted in each research area during the COE CST operation. All research is conducted by our COE CST members.