In my daily perusal of the Table of Contents of the Federal Register, I make sure to focus on the three space regulatory agencies and the two space operators. However, there are others who play a role as well. Friday saw the Department of Justice and the U.S. Coast Guard showcase where they participate in matters of space legalities.
Antitrust. On October 19, 2018, the Department of Justice published a notice under the National Cooperative Research and Production Act stating that the Consortium for the Execution of Rendezvous and Servicing Operations (CONFERS) has disclosed the identities of the persons who are part of CONFERS as well as its purposes and objectives. CONFERS filed a notice with Justice and the Federal Trade Commission sharing this information in order to limit to actual damages the recovery anyone might make against the consortium under the antitrust laws. This notice protects CONFERS members if the standard setting they seek to engage in is found to violate the antitrust laws. Rather than having to pay treble damages, they would only pay actual damages.
CONFERS members include Altius Space Machines, Ball Aerospace, Thales Alenia, and many others. Click on the link above to see the rest. CONFERS plans to:
establish an independent, self-sustaining industry forum to advocate and promote on-orbit satellite maintenance, servicing, and rendezvous operations by collaborating to research, develop, and publish voluntary, consensus technical and safety standards, and engag[e] with governments on policy and oversight of satellite servicing activities. To fulfill its mission, CONFERS will recruit a broad array of members from satellite operators, service providers, insurers and underwriters, and engage other stakeholders from industry, academia, and governments. The process will be fully collaborative and will include dedicated outreach activities to engage the global commercial satellite community. The members of the CONFERS believe that future standards should be based on a set of guiding principles that will help establish responsible norms of behavior.
(If I may be allowed a shameless piece of self-promotion, Manx Prize is a work of near-future science fiction with satellite servicing, a race to de-orbit space junk, a driven engineer, and a very helpful space lawyer. Feel free to check it out.)
Safety Zones. Also on October 19, the Coast Guard published a notice proposing temporary moving safety zones for all navigable waters within a 1,000 yard radius of NASA’s crew module uprighting system test article in the territorial waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Galveston, Texas. NASA is evaluating an updated design to the crew module uprighting system, which consists of five airbags on top of the crew capsule that inflate upon splashdown.
The safety zone is necessary to protect persons, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by vessels and equipment engaged in the crew capsule’s at-sea testing. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the safety zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Houston-Galveston or a designated representative.
Testing will involve surface vessels, divers, and remotely operated submarine vehicles. The comment period is short because the safety zone must be in place by November 28.
Comments due by: November 5, 2018.