Federal Aviation Administration August 18, 2023 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The FAA is adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all Airbus Canada Limited Partnership Model BD-500-1A10 and BD-500-1A11 airplanes. This AD was prompted by reports of mechanical wear damage found on the engine fuel feed system tubes and fuel tube connections. This AD requires repetitive inspections of the fuel feed system for damage, and replacement if necessary, as specified in a Transport Canada AD, which is incorporated by reference. The FAA is issuing this AD to address the unsafe condition on these products.

This proposed rule would incorporate various changes required by the United States Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of November 2015. This proposed rule would provide regulatory clarity to applicants seeking licenses for space flight operations involving government astronauts by adding two new subparts to the human space flight regulations containing requirements for operators with government astronauts with and without safety-critical roles on board vehicles. The proposed rule would also require an operator to demonstrate any government astronauts on board can perform their role in safety-critical tasks. This proposed requirement would maintain public safety by ensuring operators provide mission specific training on safety-critical tasks to government astronauts, as has been done in the NASA Commercial Crew Program. The proposed rule would also update definitions relating to commercial space launch and reentry vehicles and occupants to reflect current legislative definitions, expand applicability of permitted operations for reusable suborbital rockets to include reusable launch vehicles that will be launched into a suborbital trajectory or reentered from a suborbital trajectory, as well as implement clarifications to financial responsibility requirements in accordance with the United States Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. Finally, this proposed rule would move the templates for waiver of claims to an advisory circular.