Jackie Wattles and Kristin Fisher, CNN
Wed, October 18, 2023
From SpaceX
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A top SpaceX executive is accusing government regulators of stifling the company’s progress on its Starship megarocket — potentially opening the door for China to beat US astronauts back to the moon.
William Gerstenmaier — SpaceX’s vice president for build and reliability who previously served as NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration — delivered the warning Wednesday to the Senate subcommittee on space and science at a hearing on commercial space regulations.
The remarks come as SpaceX is facing an environmental review by the Fish and Wildlife Service and a safety review by the Federal Aviation Administration of plans to launch its massive moon rocket again at the company’s facility in South Texas.
Starship — the rocket and spacecraft system the company is developing in part to land astronauts on the moon for NASA’s Artemis program — exploded after its first test flight in Texas earlier this year.
“It’s a shame when our hardware is ready to fly, and we’re not able to go fly because of regulations or review,” Gerstenmaier said, noting that SpaceX has been ready for a month to launch the next Starship test flight. “Licensing, including environmental (review), often takes longer than rocket development. This should never happen. And it’s only getting worse.”
He also claimed the regulatory delays have “nothing to do with public safety.”
Race to the moon
Gerstenmaier said the discussions about the regulatory environment are critical “in the face of strategic competition from state actors like China.”
“These delays may seem small in the big scheme of things but…. delays in each and every test flight adds up. And eventually we will lose our lead and we will see China land on the moon before we do,” Gerstenmaier said.
The FAA, which was not represented at the hearing, said in a statement Wednesday, “Keeping pace with industry demand is a priority and is important for several reasons, including meeting our national security and civil exploration needs.”
NASA’s Artemis program aims to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years, racing against China’s own plans to develop a moon base.
SpaceX faced pushback over its first test flight. A group of environmental advocates sued the FAA over the incident, alleging the agency did not comply with environmental law by allowing the launch to move forward.
SpaceX, for its part, has frequently said explosions of its rockets are welcome in the early stages of development, claiming it helps inform design quicker than ground tests.
Gerstenmaier did acknowledge that in addition to regulatory hurdles, SpaceX continues to face technological challenges with Starship development. It still is not clear whether SpaceX can meet NASA’s goal of having Starship ready for a lunar landing by late 2025.
“We’ve got a lot of challenges in front of us to meet the requirements that we received from NASA,” he told CNN in brief remarks after the hearing.
“The only way we can get there is by flying,” Gerstenmaier said.
He added that SpaceX has had a hard time allocating resources amid uncertainty about when the launch license will arrive.
“We had people work extra shifts … We got the vehicle ready, then we couldn’t fly,” Gerstenmaier said, adding that SpaceX will likely carry out more ground tests, such as a wet dress rehearsal, as it awaits the license, but that the regulatory uncertainty prevents them from establishing a more productive schedule.
Regulatory response
The FAA said in a September statement that SpaceX must “obtain a modified license from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch.”
The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is tasked with evaluating the environmental impacts of SpaceX’s test flight, told CNN on Wednesday that it’s working to begin an official consultation with the FAA. After that, the Service will have up to 135 days to deliver an opinion.
That could delay the next launch of Starship into 2024.
Gerstenmaier attributed regulatory hangups in part to a lack of staffing, saying the FAA’s licensing department is in “great distress” and “needs twice the resources it has today.”
In its statement Wednesday, the FAA said it is “working diligently to attract, hire and retain additional staff.”
In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Deputy NASA Administrator Pam Melroy said properly funding the federal agencies that regulate launches is essential to NASA’s goals.
“As global interest and capabilities in space exploration continue to expand at a rapid rate, America must continue to lead in human exploration with the return to the Moon under Artemis and the first human mission to Mars to search for life farther in the solar system,” Melroy said. “To be successful in achieving NASA’s goals, it’s important our regulatory partners have the resources they need to carry out their oversight duties and keep pace with commercial industry progress.”
Unity amid deep division
Alongside SpaceX at the hearing were representatives from two other commercial space companies: Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, both of which send wealthy tourists to the edge of space on suborbital rockets.
In a remarkable display of unity on a day of deep divisions elsewhere on Capitol Hill, all witnesses and the subcommittee members that spoke Wednesday were in agreement that the regulatory framework facing commercial space companies needs change and warned against rulemaking that could hamper progress.
The witnesses also called on Congress to streamline regulations and pinpoint a single federal agency to serve as a one-stop-shop for commercial space licensing.
They also advocated that Congress should not allow the FAA to implement new regulations focused on protecting the safety of commercial spaceflight passengers. (A moratorium on such regulations has been in place for two decades but is set to expire on January 1.)
The top Republican on the subcommittee, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and ranking member Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona, both agreed the moratorium should be extended.
They each also acknowledged that existing regulations — such as those that outline the process for obtaining human spaceflight launch licenses, as well as satellite licenses — need to be improved.
SpaceX Blames Understaffed FAA for Starship Regulatory Delays
Passant Rabie
Wed, October 18, 2023
SpaceX recently shared images of a fully stacked Starship awaiting its FAA license to launch once again.
With a fully stacked Starship on the pad awaiting a license to launch, SpaceX has seemingly lost its patience with the regulatory process governing its rockets. The company is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to increase its efficiency in issuing launch licenses, according to media reports.
On Wednesday, SpaceX is meeting before the U.S. Subcommittee on Space and Science, and company officials will urge that the FAA double the staff in charge of issuing space launch licenses, and to also prioritize programs that serve national interests, Ars Technica reported. SpaceX also suggested that parties applying for licenses with the FAA should be given the option to help pay for independent third-party technical support during upcoming surge times while the agency goes through its hiring process.
“With the flight rates that are increasing, with the other players that are coming on board, we see there’s potentially a big industry problem coming where the pace of government is not going to be able to keep up with the pace of development on the private-sector side,” SpaceX executive William Gerstenmaier told The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday.
Earlier this week, SpaceX shared photos on X (formerly Twitter) that showed its Starship rocket fully stacked atop its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, with the company writing: “Starship fully stacked while team prepares for a launch rehearsal. We continue to work with the FAA on a launch license.” The rocket was destacked later the same day.
The FAA closed its investigation into the inaugural launch of Starship and gave SpaceX a list of 63 corrective actions to implement before it can fly its megarocket again. These actions entail a redesign of the vehicle’s hardware to prevent leaks and fires and a modification of the launch pad to boost its resilience, after which the FAA will likely want to conduct a subsequent review before granting SpaceX its launch license.
Starship’s maiden launch, which took place on April 20, ended abruptly when the rocket was forced to self-destruct nearly four minutes after liftoff. The self-destruct sequence did not immediately result in the disintegration of the Starship prototype, while the launch caused excessive damage to the launch mount and scattered huge amounts of dust and debris to the surrounding area.
Despite its flawed test flight, SpaceX has been eager to see Starship launch again. Starship stands at the forefront of SpaceX’s spaceflight ambitions, which it plans to use to launch its next generation Starlink satellites, as well as land astronauts on the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. And of course, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants to use the megarocket to transport thousands of colonists to Mars.
SpaceX has been known to adopt an aggressive approach when it comes to the development of its rockets, and the company is not afraid to watch its prototypes explode one after the other until it finally gets it right. It seems that SpaceX is asking the regulatory body of the FAA to catch up with its aggressive pace.
“We’ve been ready to fly for a few weeks now,” Tim Hughes, SpaceX senior vice president, told The Washington Post. “And we’d very much like the government to be able to move as quickly as we are. If you’re able to build a rocket faster than the government can regulate it, that’s upside down, and that needs to be addressed. So we think some regulatory reforms are needed.”
SpaceX is highlighting the national significance of its Starship rocket, given its vital role in NASA’s mission to send humans back to the Moon in 2025. “There should be some sort of prioritization relative to programs of national importance,” Hughes added. “For instance, launches that serve the Artemis program. One would think that those would be treated with the utmost efficiency, all within the context of protecting public safety.”
As the space industry rapidly grows, it’s possible that the FAA might not be able to meet all its demands at once. SpaceX, on the other hand, may be feeling the heat from delays in its development of Starship as NASA expresses concern that the company may be responsible for a later touchdown on the lunar surface.
The FAA is primarily and understandably concerned with the safety of those on the ground. During the interviews, SpaceX officials did mention public safety, but the greater emphasis seemed to be on the speed at which the company can launch its rockets. “I want to stress we’re not saying we want to put public safety at risk in any way, shape or form. We want to protect public safety. But we want to move as fast as we can move within that framework,” Gerstenmaier said.
Gizmodo
SpaceX: FAA Is Slowing Progress to the Moon
Natalie Dowzicky
Wed, October 18, 2023
Illustration: Lex Villena; Ron Sachs CNP MEGA Newscom RSSIL Newscom, SPACEX UPI
Most Americans want astronauts to get back to the moon and eventually to Mars, but those expeditions will keep getting pushed back unless the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can get its act together. Every rocket—regardless of who makes it—that soars into space must get licensing and approval from the FAA, but SpaceX claims that the government agency is both understaffed and too slow-moving.
SpaceX launches Falcon rockets roughly every four days, they are the industry leader by far. But as SpaceX and their competition—Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, and other smaller companies—increase their flight rates, the industry is witnessing firsthand how the government agency is hindering NASA's ability to get back to the moon.
Back in April, SpaceX did the first test launch of Starship, which is the vehicle that NASA is relying on for the later stages of its Artemis program, which seeks to explore the lunar surface. Starship successfully made it airborne but then started shifting uncontrollably, forcing SpaceX to use the onboard flight termination system. This resulted in the destruction of the launch pad in addition to debris flying nearby to the South Texas launch facility. After assessing the destruction, the FAA then required the company to address a multitude of issues before SpaceX would be permitted to launch Starship again.
Elon Musk now claims that all of those concerns were addressed, but the FAA has still failed to approve another Starship launch. It took more than two years to get the first launch of Starship approved and there is no telling how long it could take to get the second one through. Not only is this making SpaceX rethink trying to get other rockets approved for takeoff at the moment, but it is also delaying the Artemis program. Ultimately, Artemis III will not happen without Starship—which means the hope of getting back to the moon by the end of 2025 is looking more and more unlikely.
Tim Hughes, senior vice president at SpaceX, told the Washington Post, "We'd very much like the government to be able to move as quickly as we are. If you're able to build a rocket faster than the government can regulate it, that's upside down, and that needs to be addressed. So we think some regulatory reforms are needed."
Regulatory reform of the FAA could take on a few different forms, but SpaceX suggests that the government agency double its licensing staff. Anything that would streamline the cumbersome approval process at this point would help—even if that means throwing the process out and starting from scratch.
The snail pace at which the FAA gets launch licenses approved is putting the private space industry in jeopardy. Of course, launches should be reviewed for safety, but there's no excuse for why that assessment takes years. "Next year could be a pretty dynamic time with lots of providers in spaceflight," a SpaceX official told ArsTechnica, so let's hope that the FAA speeds up its process or just gets out of the way entirely.
The post SpaceX: FAA Is Slowing Progress to the Moon appeared first on Reason.com.
SpaceX Seeks to Head Off New Human Spaceflight Safety Rules
Loren Grush
Tue, October 17, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Space Exploration Technologies Corp. plans to advocate to the US Congress on Wednesday for a multiyear extension of a ban on imposing safety regulations on commercial human spaceflight.
An executive at Elon Musk’s rocket company who is scheduled to testify at a Senate subcommittee hearing plans to argue that the Federal Aviation Administration already is struggling to keep pace with a rapidly shifting rocket launch industry.
“We want to keep moving as fast paced as we can,” William Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “And we don’t want to be held up where we don’t need to be held up.”
Even under its traditional regulatory mandate, the FAA needs more staffing to carry out its oversight duties, Gerstenmaier said. SpaceX alone has launched 73 missions so far in 2023, with its 74th scheduled as early as Tuesday evening — the most it has launched in a single year.
“They’ve been supportive to us, but we think they’re just getting buried, and we just see them getting more and more busy in the future,” he said.
The FAA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since 2004, there’s been a moratorium on the FAA setting safety rules for spacecraft that take humans to and from space. People who fly to space on commercial vehicles do so under an “informed consent” framework, where they must acknowledge that the spacecraft they’ll be riding on has not been certified by the government.
Those who support the ban say the commercial space industry is still in a “learning period” and premature regulations could stifle innovation.
The nearly 20-year moratorium was set to come to an end on Oct. 1. However, Congress extended the ban three months to Jan. 1 in a stopgap measure to fund the federal government. It’s unclear if another extension will occur.
The subject will be discussed during a hearing of the Senate subcommittee on space and science on Wednesday. Representatives from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will join Gerstenmaier as witnesses.
Speedup Ideas
SpaceX also plans to make recommendations Wednesday for how to speed up the FAA’s work.
For example, SpaceX had to wait for the FAA to close its mishap investigation from the first Starship test launch before the company could reapply for a license to relaunch the vehicle. It’s better for those things to happen in parallel, Gerstenmaier said.
The company is a critic of the rules and regulations surrounding the licensing process for rocket launches and spacecraft re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, what is known as Part 450 of FAA’s licensing procedure. Part 450 was created to streamline rocket licensing by creating performance-based requirements.
SpaceX argues the FAA has struggled to implement those regulations effectively since companies have different methods for proving similar requirements.
“I think part of the 450 problem was we might have jumped to regulations too fast,” Gerstenmaier said. “They were well meaning and well intentioned, they were supposed to streamline things, but then the devil is in the details and it actually slowed us down.”
In July, the FAA announced plans to create a rulemaking committee to determine potential new safety standards that could be put in place when the moratorium ends. The rulemaking committee plans to gather recommendations on what those standards should be from members of the space industry.
However, the company would prefer to extend the moratorium while potential regulations are debated at the FAA. The informed consent framework already gives the FAA the ability to step in if a major accident occurs with humans on board.
“They have a tremendous amount of authority in today’s world,” Gerstenmaier said.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
Loren Grush
Tue, October 17, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Space Exploration Technologies Corp. plans to advocate to the US Congress on Wednesday for a multiyear extension of a ban on imposing safety regulations on commercial human spaceflight.
An executive at Elon Musk’s rocket company who is scheduled to testify at a Senate subcommittee hearing plans to argue that the Federal Aviation Administration already is struggling to keep pace with a rapidly shifting rocket launch industry.
“We want to keep moving as fast paced as we can,” William Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News. “And we don’t want to be held up where we don’t need to be held up.”
Even under its traditional regulatory mandate, the FAA needs more staffing to carry out its oversight duties, Gerstenmaier said. SpaceX alone has launched 73 missions so far in 2023, with its 74th scheduled as early as Tuesday evening — the most it has launched in a single year.
“They’ve been supportive to us, but we think they’re just getting buried, and we just see them getting more and more busy in the future,” he said.
The FAA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since 2004, there’s been a moratorium on the FAA setting safety rules for spacecraft that take humans to and from space. People who fly to space on commercial vehicles do so under an “informed consent” framework, where they must acknowledge that the spacecraft they’ll be riding on has not been certified by the government.
Those who support the ban say the commercial space industry is still in a “learning period” and premature regulations could stifle innovation.
The nearly 20-year moratorium was set to come to an end on Oct. 1. However, Congress extended the ban three months to Jan. 1 in a stopgap measure to fund the federal government. It’s unclear if another extension will occur.
The subject will be discussed during a hearing of the Senate subcommittee on space and science on Wednesday. Representatives from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will join Gerstenmaier as witnesses.
Speedup Ideas
SpaceX also plans to make recommendations Wednesday for how to speed up the FAA’s work.
For example, SpaceX had to wait for the FAA to close its mishap investigation from the first Starship test launch before the company could reapply for a license to relaunch the vehicle. It’s better for those things to happen in parallel, Gerstenmaier said.
The company is a critic of the rules and regulations surrounding the licensing process for rocket launches and spacecraft re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, what is known as Part 450 of FAA’s licensing procedure. Part 450 was created to streamline rocket licensing by creating performance-based requirements.
SpaceX argues the FAA has struggled to implement those regulations effectively since companies have different methods for proving similar requirements.
“I think part of the 450 problem was we might have jumped to regulations too fast,” Gerstenmaier said. “They were well meaning and well intentioned, they were supposed to streamline things, but then the devil is in the details and it actually slowed us down.”
In July, the FAA announced plans to create a rulemaking committee to determine potential new safety standards that could be put in place when the moratorium ends. The rulemaking committee plans to gather recommendations on what those standards should be from members of the space industry.
However, the company would prefer to extend the moratorium while potential regulations are debated at the FAA. The informed consent framework already gives the FAA the ability to step in if a major accident occurs with humans on board.
“They have a tremendous amount of authority in today’s world,” Gerstenmaier said.
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.
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