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WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is moving ahead with a long-awaited committee to evaluate ways to improve launch licensing regulations as one executive calls for far greater changes.
The FAA announced Nov. 14 the establishment of an aerospace rulemaking committee, also known as a SpARC, that would examine potential changes to the FAA’s Part 450 rule for licensing launches and reentries. The SpARC is expected to hold its first meeting in early December.
“The FAA is seeking to update the licensing rule to foster more clarity, flexibility, efficiency and innovation,” Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said in a statement. “Making timely licensing determinations without compromising public safety is a top priority.”
The Part 450 rules went into effect in March 2021 after an accelerated rulemaking process prompted by the first Trump administration’s Space Policy Directive 2. The regulations were intended to streamline launch and reentry licensing, but many companies have reported problems applying for licenses under the new rules.
Part 450 was a key topic at a Sept. 10 hearing by the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. “The way it is being implemented today has caused severe licensing delays, confusion and is jeopardizing our long-held leadership position,” said Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, at that hearing.
At a Sept. 16 meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), Coleman said the FAA plans to ask companies that have gone through the Part 450 licensing process to participate in the SpARC. The FAA, in its Nov. 14 announcement, did not disclose the membership of the committee but said that it is “reaching out to invite stakeholders to participate.”
There is an urgency to update the Part 450 regulations since all existing licenses under older regulations must transfer to Part 450 by March 2026. The FAA said the SpARC will provide a final report with recommendations in late summer of 2025, which the FAA will use to inform any future rulemaking to revise the regulations.
“We cannot wait to get this set up,” Coleman said of the SpARC at the COMSTAC meeting.
He said at that meeting, and other occasions, that the problems the companies were facing may be an effect at the speed at which the regulations were developed: about two years, versus the five years for the standard rulemaking process. The new rule also shifts from prescriptive approaches, where the FAA directed specific ways to comply with the regulations, to one where the companies can develop their own approaches but must then demonstrate their effectiveness to the FAA.
“We knew at the onset that 450 was not a perfect rule,” he said at COMSTAC. “We knew we had to come back to the table at some point at take a fresh look at 450: not entirely, but fix some of the kinks and some of the problems and challenges.”
The timing of the FAA’s announcement led some to wonder if it was linked to plans by the incoming Trump administration to establish a “Department of Government Efficiency” committee with the goal of cutting government spending and regulations. Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, will co-chair the committee.
However, the FAA announced in February its intent to establish the Part 450 SpARC. At the COMSTAC meeting in September, Coleman said he expected the SpARC to start its work some time in the fall.
From thousands of pages to five
One of the biggest critics of the Part 450 regulations has been SpaceX. The company has struggled with getting licenses for its Starship vehicle through the Part 450 regulations, and company executives have previously warned that “the entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse” because of the problems it and others have faced with Part 450.
Speaking at the 31st Annual Baron Investment Conference Nov. 15, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, revealed that the company has been unable to get a Part 450 reentry license for its Dragon spacecraft despite its extensive flight history.
“I could not get a license for Dragon to reenter on Part 450, so you can imagine the struggle we have with Starship,” she said.
She argued that the problem with the regulatory process is that it dates to an era when launches were much less frequent. “I launch Falcon every two or two and a half days, and regs just weren’t built to keep up with that.”
Shotwell called for a drastic change to the regulatory process. “Everyone is starting to recognize in all industries that regulation needs to be reinvented. I probably spend more half my time working regulatory issues,” she said.
She recommended that regulations should focus on an outcome rather than specific procedures. In the case of a launch like Starship, she said, that means ensuring a safe launch that does not hurt people. “These are very simple things, yet the regulations for launch are thousands of pages.”
“You fundamentally have to break down the current regs and figure out what’s important, and only build a reg that’s readable. No one’s going to read thousands of pages,” she said. “Figure out how to do it in five pages, then everybody reads it, everybody understands it, and we can all move forward together quickly.”
She acknowledged, though, that such major reform would be a long-term process. In the meantime, she said, “we’ll be working through waivers, guidance papers, to try to operationalize the regulatory regime.”