Rocket Companies Like SpaceX May Soon Pay Per Pound to Use the Sky
The skies may no longer be free for the space industry. Rocket companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) may soon be required to pay a fee to support FAA oversight and airspace coordination, part of a broader effort to keep up with the growing launch industry.
A budget reconciliation bill released by Senator Ted Cruz last week proposes that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) begin charging licensing fees to rocket companies starting next year. The collected fees would go into a trust fund to help the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) acquire more resources needed to manage the growing number of rocket launches as it faces budget cuts for the coming year.
Today, companies like SpaceX are required to pay small fees that cover the application process for launch and reentry licenses issued by the FAA. In return, the FAA clears airspace of commercial and private flights during the rocket launches and along the path of reentry. Airlines, on the other hand, do pay fees to the FAA, which go into the Airport and Airway Trust Fund that makes up nearly half the administration's annual budget.
The burgeoning space industry is placing an added burden on the FAA, and the authors of the proposed bill suggest it's time for companies to start paying their dues. 'You have this group of new users that are paying nothing into the system that are an increasing share of the operations, and I truly believe the current structure isn't sustainable,' former FAA administrator Michael Huerta told NPR in an interview in May 2024.
The FAA initially waived fees for space companies to help the industry grow in its early years. Last year, SpaceX launched 134 rockets to orbit, mostly the Falcon 9, and it's aiming to break its record with 170 launches in 2025. As a clear industry leader, SpaceX dominates the use of airspace over the U.S., while other companies like ULA carried out a total of five launches in 2024.
SpaceX executives have also been the most vocal against the FAA's lack of resources and its inability to keep up with the growing space sector. In 2023, William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX's vice president, spoke at a hearing by the Senate subcommittee on space and science, warning that the FAA's licensing department is in 'great distress' and 'needs twice the resources it has today.'
Perhaps SpaceX didn't anticipate that the funding for those resources would come out of the company's own pockets. The new bill suggests the FAA charge rocket companies based on the weight of the payload per launch, starting with $0.25 per pound in 2026 and gradually increasing by approximately $0.10 every year. In 2033, companies will potentially have to pay $1.50 per pound of payload. For SpaceX, the fee for a Falcon 9 launch of the company's Starlink satellites would amount to an average $9,400 in 2026, according to Ars Technica. SpaceX launched 89 Starlink missions in 2024, which would have cost it around $836,600 under the suggested fee guidelines.
The FAA's AST could use that money as it faces a tight budget for 2026. The U.S. administration's skinny budget, released last month, allocates $42 million for AST. The FAA's overall budget request for 2026 is $22 billion, a very small portion of which will be used to expand the staffing for launch and reentry licensing. The budget for the FAA's commercial space office increased from $27.6 million in 2021 to $42 million in 2024 to account for the increasing number of rocket launches. The AST received roughly the same budget in 2024 and 2025, without accounting for inflation or a continually growing industry. The suggested trust fund could help fill the budgeting gap for the FAA, and allow it to expand its rocket licensing operations.
Space companies have been quick to criticize regulatory bodies like the FAA for slow processes, but now it might be time for them to pay up to launch their rockets on a speedier timeline.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Franklin County home listings asked for more money in May - see the current median price here
The median home in Franklin County listed for $364,900 in May, up 1.2% from the previous month's $360,720, an analysis of data from shows. Compared to May 2024, the median home list price increased 13.2% from $324,723. The statistics in this article only pertain to houses listed for sale in Franklin County, not houses that were sold. Information on your local housing market, along with other useful community data, is available at Franklin County's median home was 1,968 square feet, listed at $183 per square foot. The price per square foot of homes for sale is up 2.2% from May 2024. Listings in Franklin County moved briskly, at a median 36 days listed compared to the May national median of 51 days on the market. In the previous month, homes had a median of 38 days on the market. Around 196 homes were newly listed on the market in May, a 7.7% increase from 182 new listings in May 2024. The median home prices issued by may exclude many, or even most, of a market's homes. The price and volume represent only single-family homes, condominiums or townhomes. They include existing homes, but exclude most new construction as well as pending and contingent sales. In Pennsylvania, median home prices were $325,000, a slight increase from April. The median Pennsylvania home listed for sale had 1,708 square feet, with a price of $196 per square foot. Throughout the United States, the median home price was $440,000, a slight increase from the month prior. The median American home for sale was listed at 1,840 square feet, with a price of $234 per square foot. The median home list price used in this report represents the midway point of all the houses or units listed over the given period of time. Experts say the median offers a more accurate view of what's happening in a market than the average list price, which would mean taking the sum of all listing prices then dividing by the number of homes sold. The average can be skewed by one particularly low or high price. The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Please leave any feedback or corrections for this story here. This story was written by Ozge Terzioglu. Our News Automation and AI team would like to hear from you. Take this survey and share your thoughts with us. This article originally appeared on Chambersburg Public Opinion: Franklin County home listings asked for more money in May - see the current median price here
CNET
39 minutes ago
- CNET
Stop Putting Your Phone Face Up on the Table
Have you ever been phone snubbed? That's what happens when you're spending time with someone who seems more interested in their phone. Your friend might be sitting right across from you but when they're laughing at a video or meme that only they can see, it feels like they're a million miles away. I've been guilty of paying more attention to my screen than my companion and I feel bad about it afterward. There's nothing wrong with replying to an urgent Slack message or pulling up a funny TikTok to share. But I know I probably spend too much time staring at screens and a lot of that time is unhealthy doomscrolling. These days, when I'm not using my phone, I try to be more deliberate about keeping it out of sight and out of mind. If I do need to keep my phone at hand, I always have it face down. It could help save your phone battery I have a few reasons for making sure my phone screen is turned away. The first one is practical: Because my screen is face down and won't turn on for each notification, I can save a little bit of battery charge. A single notification won't mean the difference between my phone lasting the whole day or dying in the afternoon, but notifications can add up, especially if I've enabled them across all of my apps. If I'm in a lot of group chats, my screen might end up turning on dozens of times throughout the day (and that's on the low side because many teenagers have hundreds of notifications a day). It also shows that you pay attention Keeping my phone face down is also a good rule of social etiquette: If I'm hanging out with someone, I keep my screen hidden from view as a subtle way of showing that I won't be distracted by it. I don't want incoming notifications to light up my screen every few seconds, especially if I'm in a bar or other dimly lit setting. I want to keep my eyes on the person I'm talking to. "Eye contact is one of the most powerful forms of human connection. Neuroscience research indicates that when two people make direct eye contact, their brain activity begins to synchronize, supporting more effective communication and increasing empathy. This synchrony can be disrupted when attention shifts to a phone, even briefly," says Michelle Davis, clinical psychologist at Headspace. When I'm with the people I've chosen to spend time with, I want to be fully present with them. A sudden notification will tempt me to glance at, or worse, pick up my phone in the middle of a conversation. It minimizes your phone's presence I also have a more personal reason for keeping my phone face down and I suspect that other people have had this same thought: My phone takes up too much space in my life. I mean that quite literally. My phone is bigger than it needs to be. That's been especially true since I upgraded from my iPhone Mini to a "normal-sized" iPhone. Yes, I got a much needed boost in battery life but I also got a screen with more pixels to lure me into the next news headline or autoplaying Instagram reel. A small smartphone isn't something that really exists anymore. My phone is bigger and better at grabbing my attention. It competes against my friends and family, books and movies, the entire world outside of its 6-inch screen. It often wins. But there's still one small thing I can do to minimize its presence: I can keep the screen turned away from me whenever possible. It can sometimes feel like there's no escaping from my phone. Whether that ever changes, or phones evolve into a new form factor, I can't say. I can't control everything about my phone, but I can control whether the screen stares at me when I'm not staring at it.
Associated Press
40 minutes ago
- Associated Press
SHAREHOLDER REMINDER: Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Investigates Claims on Behalf of Investors of Compass Diversified
Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP Securities Litigation Partner James (Josh) Wilson Encourages Investors Who Suffered Losses Exceeding $100,000 In Compass To Contact Him Directly To Discuss Their Options If you suffered losses exceeding $100,000 in Compass stock or options between May 1, 2024 and May 7, 2025 and would like to discuss your legal rights, call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). [You may also click here for additional information] New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - June 20, 2025) - Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, is investigating potential claims against Compass Diversified ('Compass' or the 'Company') (NYSE: CODI) and reminds investors of the July 8, 2025 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action that has been filed against the Company. [ This image cannot be displayed. Please visit the source: ] Faruqi & Faruqi is a leading national securities law firm with offices in New York, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia. The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors since its founding in 1995. See As detailed below, the complaint alleges that the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose that: (1) the Company's subsidiary, Lugano Holdings, Inc., maintained unrecorded financing arrangements and irregularities in its sales, cost of sales, inventory, and accounts receivable; (2) the irregularities and undisclosed details in Lugano Holdings, Inc.'s financial statements rendered the financial statements of the Company as a whole unreliable, and would require restatement; (3) the Company failed to maintain adequate internal controls related to its financial statements; and (4) as a result, defendants' public statements were materially false and/or misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. On May 7, 2025, after the market closed, the Company disclosed that its financial statements for fiscal year 2024 should no longer be relied upon in response to an ongoing internal investigation into the Company's subsidiary, Lugano Holding, Inc. The Company revealed that the investigation 'has preliminarily identified irregularities in Lugano's non-CODI financing, accounting, and inventory practices' and that "[e]ffective May 7, 2025, Lugano's founder and CEO, Moti Ferder, resigned from all of his positions at Lugano and will not receive any severance compensation.' On this news, Compass Diversified stock price fell 8% during after-hours trading on May 7, 2025, thereby injuring investors. The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class who is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision to serve as a lead plaintiff or not. Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding Compass' conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others. To learn more about the Compass Diversified investigation, go to or call Faruqi & Faruqi partner Josh Wilson directly at 877-247-4292 or 212-983-9330 (Ext. 1310). Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, on X, or on Facebook. Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP ( ). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner. To view the source version of this press release, please visit
