Spaceflight Safety

Commercial/Private spaceflight Safety Management should be as rigorous as Aviation Safety Management and, as commercial/private spaceflight has more complex issues, arguably operators and spaceports, as well as the Design Organisations, should have safety cases for their ‘Systems’ in their own right.

Saturn SMS believe the following aspects should be considered as a minimum in addition the Aviation safety activities and are pursuing some of these elements as part of our current Ph.D research programme:

Safety Management Plan

Regulation/Legislation; the Federal Aviation Administration have produced Advisory Circulars in respect of commercial/private spaceflight regulation and requirements for prospective operators. They have formed the COMSAT who will front the regulatory issues. However, within Europe the same guidelines will not be applicable; the FAA do not require the sub-orbital spacecraft to be certified with them and that individual space participants will sign a waiver. Currently, EASA are working on guidelines for prospective operators flying Sub-Orbital Aircraft (SoA) within European airspace (‘space’ also needs to be governed as this too is being discussed). A spaceflight operator’s SMP needs to clearly state the regulations that apply and also any additional legislation.

Safety Criteria

New sub-orbital spacecraft (or in Europe, SoA) will not have been certified as per their aviation counterparts that undergo extensive design & development in order to meet the aviation safety criterion. In general, though depending on type, the spacecraft/SoA will have little development testing (in the order of 100s of tests rather than 1 or 10 million tests for instance). The FAA Advisory Circular contains a Risk Matrix as a guide and operators will have to provide their own ‘qualitative’ criteria in line with the Risk Matrix during the early phases of operation; essentially there will be a high risk of catastrophic failure. EASA will require different standards and criterion to that of the FAA and Saturn SMS are providing advice in this area.

Spaceport Safety

Depending on the type of spacecraft, additional safety risks may be present such as rocket fuel type, rocket testing facility, storage of rocket fuels and Airway safety during launch and approach/landing. For the latter, the FAA require ‘Expected Casualty’ (Ec) calculations in order to protect the ‘public’. Here in Europe ,Saturn SMS are advising that AS WELL AS the ‘public’ (known as 3rd Parties), we should also consider the flight crew (1st Parties) and the passengers/space participants (2nd Parties) – the maintainers/support crew can also fall under the ’2nd Party’ category.

Spaceflight Training & Safety Training

Training is a key mitigation aspect in safety risk management and is even more relevant to sub-orbital spaceflight/SoA profiles due to the complex and demanding environment. Additional training required on top of the Aviation training aspects include:

• Safety Management Training – Must be given to all Managers, Staff, Flight Crew, Ground Crew, ATC and supporting personnel.
• Flight Crew Training – The FAA states the minimum training and does not demand centrifuge training for instance. Centrifuge training must be seen as essential and Saturn SMS has co-authored a paper on the subject.
• Participant Training – The FAA states the minimum training as ‘emergency briefing’. Saturn SMS believe that a full programme of formal training and ‘experiential’ training should be mandated to participants and this is also covered in the paper detailed above for the flight crew.
• Occupational Health & Safety Training – Rocket fuels are handled differently to aviation fuel and this should be stringently covered and training provided in the use of rocket fuels.