Federal Aviation Administration

Federal AviationAdministrationCommercial Space

Transportation

Human Space FlightOccupant Safety Telecon

Telecon #2 – FAA OversightSeptember 18th, 2012

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Agenda• Introduction• Rules of Engagement• Next Steps• Today’s Topic• Wrap-up

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IntroductionThe FAA may not propose regulations covering occupant safety until October 2015.

However, we have a team of folks thinking about it now to be prepared, and we're wrestling with a lot of questions that we'd like input from technical folks from industry and government to help us.

We are hosting a series of one-hour telecons, each with a narrow focus on a specific technical topic to be held about once a month. We are using our industry advisory committee, COMSTAC, to help us.

We are not soliciting any proposals for agency support on this topic at this time. This is background research.

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Rules of Engagement1. When speaking, please identify yourself so we can follow up with you if we have more questions.

2. We are recording this teleconference. We will publish minutes that summarize the discussion.

3. Please limit your time to 5 minutes of time to allow for greater participation. You are welcome to follow up with a phone call or email to Pam Melroy at [email protected] or 202-493-4911.

4.AST is not currently in rulemaking, or proposing rules. We are soliciting industry input as research. Should we consider rulemaking in the future, we may use these inputs for background information. If we ask clarifying questions, please do not consider this to imply agreement, or lack of agreement, with your statements.

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Next Steps• After today’s meeting, we will take some time to put

together minutes and publish them on the AST website.

• The minutes will contain a list of attendees, the topic(s) discussed, and a summary of what was discussed.

• We look forward to you participating in the next conference call on October 23rd at 1 pm Eastern.

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Last Month’s Topic

Last month, we discussed:

What Level of Safety Should FAA Target? We wanted to know whether people think the FAA should regulate to one or multiple levels of space flight safety, what level or levels of safety the FAA should attempt to achieve, and whether the level or levels of safety should be quantified. We also asked what level of care, short of a fatality, the FAA should be concerned with.

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Today’s Topic

What Would FAA Oversight Look Like? Aircraft-like certification is not feasible at this time, due to current technology and the FAA’s statutory mandate to only pursue minimal regulations that take into consideration the evolving standards of safety in the commercial space flight industry per 51 U.S.C. 50905(c)(3). We will discuss what a licensing process should look like in terms of FAA oversight, whether such oversight could or should be called a “certification,” and for how long informed consent should remain in effect.

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Background on Certification• FAA/AST does not have statutory authority to issue certificates for

commercial launch and reentry vehicles

• FAA/AST does have statutory authority to license operations with a statutory requirement to make a license determination in 180 days.

• Difference between AST license and an aviation-like certification process is the level of insight, oversight and detail

How can FAA/AST best ascertain in 180 days whether avoidable risks to occupants have been adequately addressed and mitigated?

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Does FAA/AST Oversight Equal Certification?

• If FAA/AST cannot issue certificates - does it matter?

• What else would you call it if not certification?

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How Long Should Informed Consent be in Place?

• Informed consent statute says:

“in accordance with regulations promulgated by the Secretary, the holder of the license or permit has informed the space flight participant in writing about the risks of the launch and reentry, including the safety record of the launch or reentry vehicle type….”

• How long after occupant safety regulations have been issued should this stay in place?

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Wrap-up• Thanks to everyone for participating! You can

post comments, questions, etc. to Docket FAA-2012-0818.

• If anyone has any new topics or suggestions on improving this discussion process, contact me.

[email protected]

• We look forward to you participating in the next conference call on October 23rd. The topic will be “What Types of Requirements and Associated Guidance Material Should the FAA Develop?”

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Backup

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October 2012What Types of Requirements and Associated Guidance Material Should the FAA Develop? In general, the FAA favors space transportation regulations that are performance or process based. We will discuss the level of empirical or analytical data necessary to justify any performance-based human space flight regulation, the possible use of Advisory Circulars to add clarity to regulations, and what place government and industry standards should have in FAA licensing.