Beautiful Virgin Islands

Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Exclusive: Biden administration drafting executive order to simplify space rules -sources

Exclusive: Biden administration drafting executive order to simplify space rules -sources

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is drafting an executive order intended to streamline approval for private rocket launches amid a broader effort to bring legal and regulatory clarity for American companies on everything from space travel to private space stations, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the effort.
The order would be part of a push by the White House's National Space Council to modernize U.S. space regulation, which has failed to keep up with the increasingly ambitious pace of private-sector investment and development.

The order, slated to be ready for Biden to sign by early 2023, is meant to simplify licensing procedures under existing laws for more routine space activities like launching rockets and deploying satellites, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named.

The order will task the U.S. Department of Commerce with creating an online tool to help guide companies through various agencies' licensing processes for space-related activities, one of the sources said.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, has signaled her intention to codify new rules for private space activities, but the plan for the executive order has not been reported.

A spokeswoman for Harris did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While past administrations have made little progress revamping U.S. space laws, the Biden administration's broader effort to spur new rules, in addition to those targeted in the executive order, comes with greater urgency because of the pace of private investment in space. NASA also is pushing to privatize much of its low-Earth orbit activities.

Companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, Boeing and many more are expected to invest billions of dollars in the next decade in projects including private space stations, service satellites and spaceships in orbit.

A team of U.S. officials drafting the executive order is also studying ways to spur congressional action that would give certain federal agencies the role of authorizing and supervising those space ventures, one of the sources said.

The executive order is considered an early step to simplify existing regulations before new rules take shape. Companies like Blue Origin, Axiom Space and others are developing private space stations with unclear procedures for how they can court foreign governments as customers or execute their missions in space.

Other unregulated areas include asteroid mining, for which startup AstroForge has announced plans, and clearing orbital debris, which companies like Astroscale want to tackle.

'A LAWLESS PLACE'

Current U.S. regulations targeted in the order cover space-related activities on Earth, such as the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of launch site safety and the Federal Communications Commission's allocation of satellite spectrum.

However, a lack of rules governing private in-space activities complicates space companies' ties with prospective customers, investors and insurers that need more legal certainty.

"It's basically ... a lawless place," John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University's space policy institute, said of space.

NASA hopes to land humans on the moon before the end of the decade under its Artemis program, which involves dozens of companies including SpaceX.

Companies are increasingly stepping in for other countries.

Private space stations like Orbital Reef, which Blue Origin is developing with Boeing and Sierra Space, could be deployed by 2030. Those stations would replace the International Space Station, an aging orbital science lab managed by a group of governments including the United States, Russia and the European Space Agency.

In that new world, government space powers will become customers and are expected to provide early critical funding, industry executives said. How the parties will interact remains unclear.

"I have to have a conducive regulatory environment," Blue Origin senior vice president Brent Sherwood said in an interview in September.

White House officials have held several "listening sessions" with space companies since Nov. 14 to discuss what rules the space industry would like to see, according to people familiar with the meetings.

The Biden administration's push to update space regulations is crucial for keeping the U.S. in line with international law. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty requires countries to supervise the cosmic activities of their companies and largely makes governments responsible for those entities' space behavior.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
×