Administration

Federal Aviation

FY-2008

Research and Development

Accomplishments

October 2008

Commercial Space Transportation

Federal Aviation Administration

Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

800 Independence Avenue, S.W., Rm. 331

Washington, D.C. 20591 

HQ-09667.INDD

Commercial Space Transportation
Available from

Federal Aviation Administration

Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation

800 Independence Avenue, S.W., Rm. 331

Washington, D.C. 20591

NOTICE

Use of trade names, services, or images associated with corporate entities 

in this document does not constitute official endorsement of such products, 

services, or corporate entities, either expressed or implied, by the Federal 

Aviation Administration.

Photo credits for front cover: 

Upper right corner image, UP Aerospace 

Center right image, courtesy of Arianespace

Lower right image, courtesy of U.S. Air Force

Center image, courtesy of Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX)

Upper left image, Stock Image

Center left image, courtesy of NASA 

Lower left image: Aerospace Corporation
AST FY 2008 R&D Accomplishments

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Mission

AST’s mission is to ensure protection of the 

public, property, and the national security and 

foreign policy interests of the United States 

during commercial launch or reentry activities 

and to encourage, facilitate, and promote 

U.S. commercial space transportation.
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Introduction

This document describes four Research and Development (R&D) 

projects undertaken by the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space 

Transportation (AST) in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) during 

fiscal year (FY) 2008. Three new research projects were selected and 

assigned to an AST division to lead the research effort on them. Work 

also continued on one project that was initiated in FY 2007. In addition 

to a description of each project, a summary of accomplishments to date 

is provided. 

The AST safety research supports the development of the policy, 

standards, and guidance material needed to meet FAA goals and objectives. 

Such research is also essential in developing the knowledge necessary to 

maintain and improve FAA/AST materials used to verify that the products 

and procedures of launch and reentry vehicle and site operator licensees, 

permitees, and applicants adequately comply with applicable safety 

standards. 

To that end, AST formulated and instituted an R&D activity to support 

its mission and the FAA’s strategic goal of safety. The AST Research and 

Development Plan provides a process for effectively applying resources for 

research based on clearly identified safety priorities each fiscal year. This 

Plan was used to solicit candidate research projects from internal sources, 

such as AST aerospace engineers and projects. External sources, such as 

the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee’s (COMSTAC) 

Reusable Launch Vehicle Working Group (RLVWG) and Launch Operations 

Support Working Group (LOSWG), were also solicited. 

First, the AST R&D Advisory Board evaluated candidate research projects 

for relevance to AST’s mission, relative importance, and cost. Second, the 

AST R&D Advisory Board ranked the candidate research projects to arrive 

at a prioritized list to present to the AST R&D Senior Steering Committee 

for review. Third, the AST R&D Senior Steering Committee selected the 

R&D projects to undertake in FY 2008 that had the greatest potential to 

fulfill AST’s mission and to meet its budgeted requirements. Lastly, the R&D 

Advisory Board and Senior Steering Committee held periodic R&D project 

status reviews throughout the year.

Historical Database of Failures & Reliability of

Rocket-powered Vehicles

At the suggestion of the of the Commercial Space Transportation 

Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) Reuseable Launch Vehicles (RLV) 

Working Group, a database review of historic failure modes of rocketpowered vehicles (both expendable and reusable) was initiated during 

FY 2007 using open source literature. The ultimate goal is to provide the 

emerging commercial space transportation industry with insight into what 

components of rocket-powered vehicles fail and why. 

In this database, the definition of “failure” draws from a clause in FAA/

AST Guide to Probability of Failure Analysis for New Expendable Launch 

Vehicles, specifically: “An in-flight failure occurs when a launch vehicle 

does not complete any phase of normal flight.” Note that this definition 

excludes failures where a vehicle’s lower stages had already placed the 

spacecraft in orbit. An example is the failure of an apogee kick motor 

attached to a satellite that had already been placed in a transfer orbit by 

the lower stages of its launcher.

The study progressed in two phases: first, all US and foreign expendable 

launch vehicles over the last 50 years (i.e., Atlas), followed by rocketpowered aircraft (i.e., X-15). For the 255 expendable launches for which 

a failure reason could be determined during the 1957-2007 period, 

propulsion anomalies were found to be the salient failure mode (51%). 

Guidance and navigation were the next leading causes of failure (20%). 

Upon review of the 142 launch failures with known causes that have 

occurred since 1980, propulsion anomalies remain the salient failure mode 

(54%) while guidance and navigation remains the next leading cause of 

failure, although the percentage dropped significantly (12%). At the same 

time, the proportion of software and computing-related failures is growing 

and has become significant (9%). The database for rocket-powered aircraft 

was completed during FY 2008 and a summary report prepared.
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V Component, Norman OK/January 10

100

1000

-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80

Wind Speed (m/s )

GGUAC Mean

Station Mean

Station Lower Conf

Bound

Station Upper Conf

Bound

Pressure (hPa)

Data Courtesy Aerospace Corp.

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High-Altitude Wind Measurement Technology

Assessment

The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, and other 

recent events in the commercial space sector (Ansari X-Prize and X Prize 

Cup) are helping spawn an emerging space tourism industry. The recently 

released regulations on Experimental Permits, issued in April 2007, have 

directly led to an increase in commercial reusable launch vehicles operating 

out of commercial (non-government) launch sites. Unlike government 

launch sites (which have dedicated meteorological staff and equipment), 

some commercial launch sites may have limited weather equipment or 

access to weather data. 

One of the most important weather parameters for a launch vehicle 

is wind data, especially in the upper levels. Upper level wind speeds and 

shear can induce severe loads on launch vehicles and negatively impact 

their ability to deliver the payload to the proper orbit. They may also cause 

a launch vehicle to deviate from the projected flight path. 

The FAA, in cooperation with the Volpe Center and Aerospace 

Corporation, is conducting a study that will assess existing technologies 

for determining wind conditions from the upper troposphere to the 

stratosphere in support of reusable launch vehicle launches in remote 

locations. 

This study will focus on identifying available technologies for retrieving 

wind data within the 50,000 – 150,000 ft range. The study will also 

investigate the sensitivities of each technology, and compare them to 

atmospheric model data in terms of accuracy, representativeness, and 

other benefits. 

A recommendation will emerge from this study as to the best mix of 

wind technologies, modeling, or other methodologies to obtain wind 

data for reusable launch vehicles operating out of remote, commercial 

launch sites.

Temporal Winds Database Considerations for Safety

Evaluation of Unguided Suborbital Launch Vehicles

The rise of new inland launch sites in the continental United States has 

raised awareness of the need to ensure suitable environment databases 

exist to assess the impact of winds on planned launch operations of 

unguided suborbital rockets from these launch sites. Quite often a launch 

operator will measure the wind environment at the launch site of their 

planned launches and determine a planned impact point for their single 

or multistage vehicle given this measured wind and the implementation of 

a wind weighting system. In most instances, the launch operator needs 

to account for the temporal effect of winds on the planned impact points. 

These temporal effects, in combinations with dispersions, influence the 

clear out zone for the rocket launches. 

In cooperation with the FAA, the Aerospace Corporation will conduct 

a study to evaluate the impact of temporal winds on unguided suborbital 

rockets. This study will have two objectives.

First, to determine if a suitable temporal wind database exists at 

three inland launch sites of interest.

Second, to determine how much temporal winds can change 

the planned impact point of an unguided suborbital rocket, 

whether it is a suborbital to 30,000 feet or 360,000 feet. 

The change in planned trajectories will be related to the 

monthly wind variation.
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A survey has been initiated to determine if the Global Gridded Upper 

Air Station (GGUAS) database, a database which FAA regulation calls out, 

provides suitable environments at the launch sites of interest by comparing 

the GGUAS monthly winds with stations winds collected at the three 

launch sites (or stations) of interest. Aerospace Corporation will collect 

existing temporal wind data from these stations and stations located 

at the ETR range and assess a low altitude and high altitude unguided 

suborbital launch vehicle to determine the relationship between the 

temporal winds and the monthly winds. The picture below represent the 

launch of the Up Aerospace unguided suborbital launch vehicle. The chart 

presents preliminary data showing that station monthly winds are in good 

agreement with the GGUAS monthly winds.

These tasks are scheduled for completion in January 2009.

Informed Consent for Space Flight Participants

To learn more about “informed consent” required by the Commercial 

Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 the FAA/AST initiated a project to 

examine the issue of what a commercial space flight operator will need to 

do to satisfy the regulatory requirements of 14 CFR Part 460, specifically 

at § 460.45(a)(1). This is the section that requires a launch operator to 

inform space flight participants of each known hazard and risk that could 

result in a serious injury, death, disability, or total or partial loss of physical 

and mental function.

The report generated by the study provides background on the origin of 

informed consent, a description of its place in traditional legal framework, 

a discussion of how much information should be given to a space flight 

participant based on past cases, and recommendations on what a space 

flight participant should be told about the possible effects of space flight 

on the human body. To accomplish this portion of the task, the study 

gathered information on the possible effects on the human body due to 

space flight. Consideration was given to hazards such as pressure, noise, 

gravity, temperature, impact, atmosphere, and radiation. 

Informed consent is derived from medicine, where doctors must inform 

patients of any risks or alternatives to a treatment. The patient may then 

choose to accept or reject treatment. The right of a patient to informed 

consent has been an important part of medical malpractice lawsuits for 

over three decades.

When the concept transfers to commercial human spaceflight, some 

of the principles applied to medicine still apply. As in medicine, the space 

flight participant must receive enough information to enable an informed 

decision. It is first important to understand that Congress expressly stated 

that the emerging commercial human space flight industry was not to 

be viewed as highly regulated transportation like the airline industry but 

rather was comparable to adventure travel. Congress even went so far 

as to compare the participants to daredevils, visionaries, and adventurers. 

The report proceeded to look at the standards of informed consent for 

commercial recreation or adventure sports operators. As with adventure 

sports, the risks that must be included in any informed consent warnings 

are those that would affect a reasonable person’s decision-making. The 

greatest emphasis should be placed on the areas with the most frequent 
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or most severe risks. Space flight participants need to be aware, however, 

that the effects of suborbital flight on the human body are not completely 

known.

The report finally summarized the hazards to space flight participants 

that have been identified by research of space flight experience.

The report concluded with three recommendations.

The regulation mandates written informed consent. Legally 

informed consent only provides legal protection, that is, defense, from the 

risks of an activity and not from negligence. There is some confusion as 

to whether any private contract that seeks pre-activity exculpation from 

inherent risks and negligence (standard in the adventure world) would be 

valid. Where the appendices (part 440) to the final rule provide exculpatory 

style documents in favor of the government as the permitting agency, there 

is reason to believe that exculpatory documents between a commercial 

operator and a SFP would be allowed.

Courts differ as to whether a risk is material or not. A material 

risk is one which a reasonable operator would provide to a reasonable 

space flight participant. It is impossible to enumerate every single risk. 

Clarification of how materiality gets satisfied – either by what the operator 

believes is material or by what the SFP thinks is material should be provided. 

As stated previously, the greatest emphasis should be placed on the areas 

with the most frequent or most severe risks.

Collaboration with industry may well be necessary or expedient at 

this point. Where it has been widely publicized that a leading suborbital 

provider has signed up literally thousands of prospective space flight 

participants and has begun working with them, or at least working with 

some of their “founders,” using this early group to determine or establish 

materiality may well be revealing for industry.

The report and recommendations are provided as an example only. 

It is recommended that individual operators work with experienced legal 

counsel for advice tailored to the operator’s specific operations.