this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
35 points (100.0% liked)

Spaceflight

648 readers
33 users here now

Your one-stop shop for spaceflight news and discussion.

All serious posts related to spaceflight are welcome! JAXA, ISRO, CNSA, Roscosmos, ULA, RocketLab, Firefly, Relativity, Blue Origin, etc. (Arca and Pythom, if you must).

Other related space communities:

Related meme community:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
llamacoffee
35
Did you know that the FAA has re-entry licences? Neither did Varda (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by pigeonberry to c/[email protected]
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'd seen the story about a spacecraft making a drug in microgravity and planning to land it in the US.

However, the recovery of Varda's capsule is on hold after the Federal Aviation Administration and the US Air Force recently declined to give Varda approval to land its spacecraft in a remote part of Utah. TechCrunch first reported the FAA turned down Varda's application for a commercial reentry license.

"Varda Space Industries launched its vehicle into space without a reentry license," an FAA spokesperson told Ars on Wednesday. "The FAA denied the Varda reentry license application on September 6 because the company did not demonstrate compliance with the regulatory requirements."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] pigeonberry 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I chose the title because I thought and hoped it's a reasonable inference.

As an example, the first time I booked my own air flight -- actually, every time -- I made sure it was a ticket for the days and places I want, and that I got to my home at the end.

Do you know more about this Varda licensing situation? Is it possible to get a re-entry licence before launch? If they could have, they're incompetent not to. If not, that seems like a ridiculous regulation, requiring someone to launch with no confidence that they can legally come back (and possibly still incompetence on Varda's part for not making sure all the conditions were going to be met).

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No idea, but it's a new process. Here's an article from late July about the same issue:

https://spacenews.com/varda-waiting-on-faa-license-to-return-space-manufacturing-capsule/