Action
Notice of waiver.
Summary
This notice concerns a petition for waiver submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) to waive the launch collective risk limit of 1 x 10<SUP>-4</SUP> expected casualties (E<INF>c</INF>) for Starship Super Heavy missions that utilize a near-orbital trajectory. The near-orbital Starship Super Heavy missions have been deemed suborbital such that a single launch collective risk limit of 1 x 10<SUP>-4</SUP> E<INF>c</INF> has been applied to cover the aggregate of the risks from the suborbital launch and suborbital reentry phases of each mission. The SpaceX petition requests an increase to the collective risk limit, to not exceed 2 x 10<SUP>-4</SUP> E<INF>c</INF>, with the condition that neither the suborbital launch nor suborbital reentry risks exceed 1 x 10<SUP>-4</SUP> E<INF>c</INF> individually. The FAA grants the petition for near-orbital Starship Super Heavy missions to allow a risk budget that parallels but remains consistent with an orbital mission profile that has a separate risk limit of 1 x 10<SUP>-4</SUP> E<INF>c</INF> for both the launch and reentry phases.