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

The FAA announced Nov. 14 the creation of an aerospace regulatory committee, also known as SpARC, that will review potential changes to the FAA Part 450 rule for licensing launches and re-entry. 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, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation, said in a statement. “Determining timely licensing 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 simplify the granting of launch and re-entry licenses, but many companies reported problems applying for licenses under the new rules. .

Part 450 was a key topic at a September 10 hearing by the Space Subcommittee of the House Science Committee. “The way it is being implemented today has caused serious licensing delays, confusion and jeopardizes our long-held leadership position,” Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Flight Federation, said at that hearing.

At a Sept. 16 meeting of the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC), Coleman said the FAA plans to require 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 committee’s membership, but said it is “reaching out to invite interested parties to participate.”

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

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

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

“We knew from the beginning that 450 was not a perfect rule,” he told COMSTAC. “We knew we had to go back to the table at some point to take a fresh look at the 450: not completely, but it fixes some of the issues and some of the problems and challenges.”

The timing of the FAA’s announcement led some to wonder if it was tied to the incoming Trump administration’s plans to create a “Department of Government Efficiency” committee aimed at cutting government spending and regulations. Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, will co-chair the committee.

However, The FAA announced in February its intention to establish the Part 450 SpARC. At the COMSTAC meeting in September, Coleman said he expects SpARC to begin 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 struggled to obtain licenses for its Starship vehicle through Part 450 regulations and Company executives have previously warned that “the entire regulatory system is at risk of collapse” because of the problems she and others have had with the 450 part.

Speaking at 31^St Baron Investment’s annual conference November 15, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, revealed that the company was unable to obtain a Part 450 re-entry license for its Dragon spacecraft, despite its extensive flight history.

“We couldn’t get a license for Dragon to re-enter the 450 part, 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 back to an era when releases were much less frequent. “I launch Falcon every two or two and a half days, and the rules just weren’t built to keep up with that.”

Shotwell called for a drastic change in the regulatory process. “Everyone is starting to recognize across all industries 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 doesn’t hurt people. “These are very simple things, but the regulations for the launch are thousands of pages long.”

“Basically, you have to break down the current rules and figure out what’s important and just create a rule that’s readable. No one is going to read thousands of pages,” she said. “Find out how to do it in five pages, then everybody reads it, everybody understands it, and we can all go together quickly.”

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

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