Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Waiver of Autonomous Reentry Restriction for a Reentry Vehicle
This notice of waiver concerns two petitions for waiver submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX): A petition to waive the requirement that a waiver petition be submitted at least sixty days before the proposed effective date of the waiver, and a petition to waive the requirement that SpaceX only initiate reentry of its reentry vehicle, the Dragon Spacecraft (Dragon), by command. The first petition is unnecessary because, as explained below, SpaceX demonstrated good cause for its late filing. The FAA finds that waiving the requirement for SpaceX ground operators to initiate Dragon's reentry to Earth is in the public interest and will not jeopardize public health and safety, safety of property, and national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.