On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> Don't they have to get FAA approval first, especially
> since they have a commercial payload?
It's not a commercial payload, it's a military payload. That does
simplify matters.
> And doesn't that
> require lots more testing than they've done?
No, there's no specific requirement for testing.
It's an expendable rocket, launching a military payload on a military
launch range, carrying a standard expendable-rocket destruct system under
control of a USAF Range Safety Officer. This clears away a lot of the
issues. There are four parts to a launch-licence application:
+ innocent-bystander safety (largely taken care of by range and RSO)
+ environmental issues (mostly punted to existing launch-site paperwork)
+ payload acceptability to government (okay by definition for govt. payload)
+ liability insurance (very traditional launch concept, well-established
procedures for computing worst-case accidents)
The hard part is when you don't want a bomb on board, don't want to deal
with missile-range bureaucracies, need to license for reentry as well as
launch, and are doing something novel whose risks are hard to estimate
confidently.
Henry Spencer
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