Space Craft Meet a Professor Whose Research is Helping Write the Space Policies and

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“You would go outside and look up at the sky,” says the assistant professor of commercial space operations at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach Campus, “and the launches just seemed so much more positive to me and so full of promise.”
Those experiences fueled Howard’s desire to help craft space policies and laws encouraging global cooperation and innovation. Her research focuses on sustainability of space activities, the dynamics of interagency interaction and issues pertaining to all aspects of space traffic management and coordination.
Making Space a Safer Place
Much of Howard’s work is directed at making space activities safer, including getting space vehicles into and out of controlled airspace without disrupting general and commercial flight operations. To that end, Howard is currently principal investigator on a set of projects for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that deals with integrating commercial space activities into the National Airspace System (NAS).
“I think the work that we have been doing with the FAA is pretty groundbreaking,” Howard says, “because the United States has the most developed body of space regulations, and the FAA is the largest aviation navigation space provider globally. Aligning the regulations relevant to all stakeholders is complex.”
Her research aims to provide technical expertise to FAA officials as they plan for an increase in space vehicle operations. Howard’s work includes performing research and analysis of FAA Air Traffic Organization regulations, policies, procedures and orders pertinent to space vehicle operations, as well as international coordination issues for integration of space activities into NAS operations.
She is also working with the FAA to get safety approval for a space flight simulator at the university. Embry-Riddle has the only spaceflight simulator connected to an undergraduate university program, Howard says, and this student-focused, student-driven research offers a unique opportunity for undergraduates to interface with the FAA’s Office of Commercial ...

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