DFRC's New Role in Commercial Space

Keith’s note: According to Lori Garver’s comments at today’s FAA commerical space meeting, NASA DFRC will now take the lead on flightworthiness evaluations for suborbital vehicles that will fly NASA crew or payloads. This is somewhat of a shift from what people might have otherwise expected given that COTS and CCDev were being handled out of JSC – and that crew issues have always been the province of JSC. DFRC is where X vehicle work has been done for decades. Is NASA now going to treat commercial vehicles like X-vehicles? Stay tuned.