FAA Releases Recommended Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) today released its first Recommended Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety document today during the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) meeting.
From the introduction: “The purpose of this document is to provide a compilation of practices that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) believes are important and recommends for commercial human space flight occupant safety. The document is intended to enable a dialogue among, and perhaps consensus of, government, industry, and academia on practices that will support the continuous improvement of the safety of launch and reentry vehicles designed to carry humans.”

The document applies to both suborbital and orbital flights.

From the document scope: “The scope of this document includes suborbital and orbital launch and reentry vehicles. The document assumes that any orbital vehicle will stay in Earth orbit for a maximum of 2 weeks, and can return to Earth in under 24 hours if necessary. Orbital rendezvous and docking, flights longer than 2 weeks, extravehicular activity, and any flights beyond Earth orbit are not explicitly addressed. Future versions of this document may cover such additional human space flight operations and missions.”

– Download the FAA Recommended Practices for Human Space Flight Occupant Safety (PDF)

FAA Recommended Practices for Human Spaceflight Occupant Safety – Version1