§18405 Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program

Summary

NASA must create a Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program inside the Space Technology Program. A National Academy of Sciences report found suborbital missions are critical for building an aerospace workforce. The NASA Administrator must pick an employee to run the program and make short- and long-term plans to keep and improve suborbital facilities and capabilities. The program will pay to develop payloads for science, technology, and education and to fly them to microgravity and suborbital altitudes. It may fund engineering demos, proofs of concept, or student experiments on commercial reusable vehicles and will work with NASA’s Mission Directorates. NASA must send Congress an annual report on progress, including the number and types of missions planned each fiscal year. There is authorization of $15,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2011 through 2013 to carry out the program.