WASHINGTON — A SpaceX executive used a Senate hearing to specific frustration with the slow pace of launch licensing reviews that’s holding up the following flight of the corporate’s Starship vehicle.
At a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee’s space subcommittee Oct. 18, Bill Gerstenmaier, vp of construct and flight reliability at SpaceX, said the following Starship vehicle is prepared for flight but is on standby waiting for an updated launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Starship has been ready for its next flight test for greater than a month, but we’re waiting for an FAA license and accompanying interagency review,” he said in his opening remarks. “The Office of Business Space Transportation, often known as AST, must recognize where the industry is, where the industry goes and its role in regulating this emerging industry.”
The corporate is continuous additional tests on the vehicle, including recently stacking the Starship upper stage on its Super Heavy booster. Gerstenmaier said the corporate was planning a fueling test and practice countdown, often known as a wet dress rehearsal, in the approaching days.
“We’re doing that simply because we’ve got the time,” he told reporters after the hearing. “We get the wet dress totally free after we load for launch, but when we’re not going to get the launch license, it’s to our advantage to load now and reduce that risk.”
“That is super hard because we’ve got an unknown timeframe for after we’re going to get the license,” he said. Engineers find additional work to do on the vehicle, he noted, “but after we don’t know what the timeframe is, we don’t understand how much work to do.”
He said the corporate is “attempting to lean forward” with launch preparations, including maritime notices for potential launches that require two weeks of advance notice. “I can’t stay in limbo eternally.”
In an interview last month, Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator for industrial space transportation, who leads AST, said he expected the FAA would close out its review of actions SpaceX must take from the previous Starship launch related to public safety by late October. That might be a key milestone towards updating the launch license.
Nevertheless, he noted then that the license may even rely on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s review of the environmental effects of changes to the launch pad, including a water deluge system intended to attenuate the damage from the primary launch. While Coleman said he hoped that will be concluded “somewhere in proximity” to the protection review, a Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson said last month that it could take as much as 135 days to perform that assessment.
While Gerstenmaier told reporters that the FAA is “trying as hard as it could” and endorsed giving AST more resources, in his testimony he called on that agency and others to adopt a unique mindset to licensing reviews.
“AST’s role is to guard public safety, not to make sure success of rocket launches,” he said in his opening remarks. “Secure failure and rapid learning are sometimes the fastest path to successful development.”
He argued that was particularly true for national priorities, just like the Artemis program. SpaceX is developing a version of Starship as a lunar lander that may fly on Artemis 3, the primary crewed landing of this system, and on the hearing he warned delays in its development linked to licensing could mean that China would land humans on the moon first.
“With regards to projects of national interest, reminiscent of the Artemis program, Congress should establish a regulatory regime consistent with the national program’s objectives and schedules. Other government agencies that take part in AST licensing, like those with environmental responsibilities, must also be required to finish their work consistent with the national program schedules,” he said.
Gerstenmaier said that SpaceX was attempting to pursue an “aggressive test program” for Starship. “With that approach, it’s necessary that we go fly as soon as we are able to. The hardware is absolutely able to go fly. When we’ve got regulatory delays, reminiscent of we’re facing straight away, that slows down developmental test flights and ultimately slows down our support to NASA, slows down our support for what we want to do to return humans back to the surface of the moon again.”
He declined to say when the lunar lander Starship can be ready “at AST’s current speed” of licensing when asked by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), rating member of the Commerce Committee. “It’s hard to say,” Gerstenmaier said. “To be fair, we even have huge technical challenges.” Those challenges, he said, argued for a rapid test flight program.
Gerstenmaier told reporters he did in a roundabout way feel pressure from NASA to speed up testing of Starship. “If we would like to be a pacesetter in space, I feel an unbelievable pressure to fly as soon as we are able to fly and learn as much as we are able to. So, we’re attempting to move. We’ve got a variety of challenges in front of us to satisfy to requirements we received from NASA. The one way we are able to get there’s by flying.”