Waiver of Launch Collective Risk Limit for a Near-Orbital Trajectory

Document Headings Document headings vary by document type but may contain the following: the agency or agencies that issued and signed a document the number of the CFR title and the number of each part the document amends, proposes to amend, or is directly related to the agency docket number / agency internal file number the RIN which identifies each regulatory action listed in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions See the Document Drafting Handbook for more details. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration AGENCY: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department of Transportation. ACTION: Notice of waiver. SUMMARY: This notice concerns a petition for waiver submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) to waive the launch collective risk limit of 1 × 10 −4 expected casualties (E c ) for Starship Super Heavy missions that utilize a near-orbital trajectory. The near-orbital Starship Super Heavy missions have been deemed suborbital such that a single launch collective risk limit of 1 × 10 −4 E c has been applied to cover the aggregate of the risks from the suborbital launch and suborbital reentry phases of each mission. The SpaceX petition requests an increase to the collective risk limit, to not exceed 2 × 10 −4 E c , with the condition that neither the suborbital launch nor suborbital reentry risks exceed 1 × 10 −4 E c individually. The FAA grants the petition for near-orbital Starship Super Heavy missions to allow a risk budget that parallels but remains consistent with an orbital mission profile that has a separate risk limit of 1 × 10 −4 E c for both the launch and reentry phases. DATES: Issued in Washington, DC, on July 31, 2024. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For technical questions concerning this waiver, contact Paul Wilde, Senior Technical Specialist, Commercial Space Transportation&mda…