California Space Authority

The California Space Authority (CSA) was a nonprofit corporation representing the commercial, civil, and national defense/homeland security interests of California's diverse space enterprise community in four domains: Industry, Government, Academia, and Workforce. CSA was also a participating member in the Coalition for Space Exploration. It officially ceased operations on June 10, 2011.

Former schoolteacher, Assemblywoman and Congresswoman Andrea Seastrand served as the Executive Director of CSA, which was governed by a statewide board of directors, composed of twelve members elected by the CSA Membership. Four directors were selected from each of CSA's three regions (Northern, Central, and Southern California) during elections that are held in the Fall in which each director was elected to a 3-year term. The terms of office were staggered such that half of the seats on the board are up for election each year. The Board would also fill additional 1-year seats with CSA members to ensure adequate representation was met across CSA's constituent types (industry, government, academia, large, small, etc.).

Designated as California's Spaceport Authority, CSA was tasked by the state of California to operate as a member-based "enterprise" association that worked closely with individual, corporate, state and local government and academic stakeholders throughout the state. The main purpose of CSA was to facilitate California's competitiveness within the aerospace industry. In this capacity, CSA was also authorized to facilitate development of California-based spaceports.

Including space-related companies, individual entrepreneurs, government agencies, non-profit organizations and College and University research programs, California's space enterprise provides or supports the delivery of hundreds of space-related products and services to the state and the nation. The total economic impact of California's space enterprise (Commercial, Civil, National Security) was estimated to be in excess of $120 billion. Representing 24% of the global space market, California space enterprise impacts over 251,000 jobs statewide.

Some of the CSA's major responsibilities were to:

The predecessor organization to the California Space Authority (CSA) was the California Space and Technology Alliance (CSTA). The first CSA Board of Directors was seated in January 2001.

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