WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration is moving forward with a long-awaited committee to evaluate ways to improve launch licensing regulations as one leader calls for much bigger changes.

The FAA announced Nov. 14 the creation of an Aerospace Regulatory Committee, also known as SpARC, that would review potential changes to the FAA’s Part 450 rule for launch and reentry licensing. The SpARC is expected to hold its first meeting in early December.

“The FAA is seeking to update the licensing rule to promote greater clarity, flexibility, efficiency and innovation,” Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said in a statement. “Making permitting decisions in a timely manner without compromising public safety is a top priority. »

The Part 450 rules took effect in March 2021 after an accelerated rulemaking process prompted by the Trump Administration’s inaugural Space Policy Directive 2. The regulations aimed 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 during a September 10 hearing by the House Science Committee’s Space Subcommittee. “The manner in which it is being implemented today has caused serious licensing delays, confusion and jeopardizes our long-standing leadership position,” said Dave Cavossa, president of the Flight Federation commercial space, during this 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 SpARC. The FAA, in its Nov. 14 announcement, did not disclose the composition of the committee, but said it is “reaching out to invite stakeholders to participate.”

There is an urgent need to update the Part 450 regulations because all existing licenses under older regulations must be transferred to Part 450 by March 2026. The FAA said SpARC will provide a final report containing recommendations in late summer 2025, which the FAA will use to inform any future rulemaking to revise the regulations.

“We can’t wait to get this up and running,” Coleman said of SpARC at the COMSTAC meeting.

He said at that meeting, and on other occasions, that the problems companies faced could be due to the speed at which regulations were developed: about two years, compared to five years for the standard regulatory process. The new rule also moves from prescriptive approaches, in which the FAA indicated specific ways to comply with the regulations, to one in which companies can develop their own approaches but must then demonstrate their effectiveness to the FAA.

“We knew from the start that 450 was not a perfect rule,” he told COMSTAC. “We knew we had to come back to the table at some point to take a fresh look at 450: not entirely, but address some issues and some issues and challenges.”

The timing of the FAA’s announcement led some to wonder whether it was related to the new Trump administration’s plans to create a “Department of Government Efficiency” committee in an effort to cut spending and government regulations. Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, will co-chair the committee.

However, the FAA announced in February its intention to establish Part 450 SpARC. At the COMSTAC meeting in September, Coleman said he expected SpARC to begin its work 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 had difficulty obtaining licenses for its Starship vehicle under Part 450 regulations, and Company executives have already warned that “the entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse.” because of the problems he and others have faced with Part 450.

Speaking on 31^st Baron Investment Annual Conference On November 15, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, revealed that the company had failed to obtain a Part 450 re-entry license for its Dragon spacecraft despite its long flight history .

“I haven’t been able to get a license for Dragon to re-enter Part 450, so you can imagine the difficulty we’re having with Starship,” she said.

She argued that the problem with the regulatory process is that it dates from a time when launches were much less frequent. “I run Falcon every two or two and a half days, and the regulations just weren’t designed to keep up with that.”

Shotwell called for a radical change in the regulatory process. “Everyone is starting to recognize, across all sectors, that regulation needs to be reinvented. I probably spend more than half my time working on regulatory issues,” she said.

She recommended that regulations 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 won’t hurt people. “It’s very simple things, but the launch rules are thousands of pages long.”

“You have to fundamentally break down the current regulations and determine what is important, and create only readable regulations. No one will read thousands of pages,” she said. “Figure out how to do it in five pages, and then everyone reads it, everyone understands it, and we can all move forward together quickly.”

She acknowledged, however, that such major reform would be a long-term process. In the meantime, she said, “we will work on waivers and guidance documents to try to operationalize the regulatory regime.”

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