Managing Industry Risk: Commercial Space Flight Safety Reporting

Human space transportation safety and risk management has evolved significantly over the sixty-plus years of strict oversight by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Beginning in the 1960s, the criticality of transparency and open reporting of safety concerns and potential areas of under addressed risk analysis have proven disastrous in high-visibility accidents such as the Apollo 1 fire, and the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia accidents. Now, both domestically and internationally, a commercial space industry is rapidly growing, serving private consumption and providing services to NASA and the U.S. military space complex. The new model of oversight, however, was built with the desire to rapidly grow the commercialization of space, counter to the slow, methodical, safety-based growth of the civil space programs of the past. From a regulatory perspective, The Federal Aviation Administration, Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) is responsible for oversight of the commercial space industry. However, since the industry has become largely driven by entrepreneurial innovation and business models,?Congress has written laws pertaining to the commercialism of space that ensure a?non-intrusive approach, with an expectation that?the industry?be the one to?develop and adopt consensus standards that evolve with the growth of space commercialism. Congress'?vision was that commercial operators would develop industry-based safety excellence in their safety management programs and systems?through a type of self-regulation. FAA/AST is responsible for regulating commercial space transportation operations only to the extent necessary to ensure public health and safety and the safety of property, with?the ability of FAA/AST to enact regulations mandating?safety management system requirements on commercial operators?specifically limited to ensure that regulations do not hinder the development and growth of private space flight operators.?Considering the FAA's limited role in oversight of commercial space operator safety, the emergence of the true private sector is shifting the role of the primary risk taker from the government (government as both the only launch provider and the primary customer) to private entities, in which the market bears the risk (government one of many customers). This rapid expansion of privatization in the launch, suborbital and orbital space markets, with minimal government oversight of safety, introduces unknown opportunities for incidents and accidents that may involve the public, private operator employees, and space flight participants (passengers). Of particular concern within the industry is how to prevent actions taken by one or two highly risk-tolerant launch providers that would adversely impact the industry as a whole. An industry-specific safety reporting system has multiple risk-reduction advantages, and conceptually can be developed alleviating concerns of over proprietary information. Much as NASA operates the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) for commercial aviation and the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS) for the railroads, these systems can be models for a safety reporting system that supports managing risks collectively, better ensuring the survivability of each operator by communicating openly among all operators. This paper will explore such a system for commercial space.