As in past years, federal regulators will grapple with what its role can and should be in this new era.

Here's a look at what's to come.

Starship and the FAA

SpaceX, the poster child of the commercial space era, has been anxious to get a full-scale version of its Starship rocket launched on its first orbital test flight.

The launch would be momentous.

(NASA is also launching its own new rocket this year — a test mission for the next lunar landing called Artemis 1 — that will make use of a different rocket that also promises to out-power the Saturn V.)

After a few high-altitude test launches in the first half of 2021 of the upper spaceship, the company has been assembling its first full-scale Starship rocket — complete with a gargantuan rocket booster that promises to propel the spaceship into orbit.

Musk had indicated the company was prepared to get that test flight off the ground as soon as July of last year.

The astronauts that launched to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule are set to return as soon as April, with a new crew of four slated to launch aboard their own Dragon capsule to replace them that same month.

The company plans to do just that, following up its 2021 Inspiration-4 mission with a four-person mission chartered by Houston-based startup Axiom that will take three businessmen and a former astronaut to the International Space Station.

Plans for other SpaceX tourism flights to orbit are also in the works, though firm plans and launch dates haven't been locked down.

Opportunities for hitching a ride to orbit may also expand this year if Boeing gets its planned Starliner spacecraft up and running.

Boeing was contracted alongside SpaceX to develop a crew-worthy spacecraft, capable of carrying professional astronauts to the ISS and, if the company so pleases, well-heeled tourists.

The company now says the earliest that uncrewed test launch can get off the ground is May of 2022.

Branson, Bezos and suborbital space tourism

Richard Branson's and Jeff Bezos' space companies have for years been working to develop spacecraft capable of taking paying customers on brief, supersonic trips to the edge of space.

A big, crowded, empty void

Similar questions about how to regulate outer space in the age of commercialization are playing out on the international stage.

There were numerous recent, high-profile events highlighting the stakes of the problem: SpaceX Starlink satellites nearly collided with the Chinese space station, the International Space Station has had to maneuver out of the path of debris on numerous occasions, and defunct rockets have fallen out of orbit uncontrolled.

Groups within the United Nations have been working for decades to update international treaties governing the use of outer space.