The Challenge

Plan Safe personnel have extensive experience working on return authorisation application, in the European space sector, working in close coordination with the Space and Civil Aviation regulatory bodies for ESA’s first orbital system, Space Rider, reentering Earth atmosphere and landing on European soil. One of the main challenges associated to this return mission was the gaps in the applicable space law and associated regulations to carry out such return and landing activity.

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What We Did

Plan Safe Personnel led the engagement with international and national space agencies, as well as aviation safety authorities and diplomatic engagement with overflown countries to successfully define the applicable safety requirements and agree on the required authorisation process for ESA’s Space Rider re-entry and landing mission.

Plan Safe team contribution successfully enabled:

• defining the strategy to ensure the safety of over-flown population during the sub-orbital part of the re-entry with a black-out phase (due to plasma)
• setting-up the strategy to safely terminate the flight during the re-entry (i.e. specific termination rules, definition of range exclusion zones)
• conducting the trade-off for landing sites, with the most appropriate location factoring in the key decision factors (distance to populated area, to the coast, topography, suitability for post-landing activities…)
• agreeing on the process to engage with over-flown third-party countries to seek for their approval for this re-entry (due to the current gap in international airspace FL600+regulation).

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The Outcome

• Research of applicable space policy for the return and landing of this lifting body, engaged with international civil aviation, space and government regulatory bodies to develop space policy options for this specific mission, which led to the amendment of the French Space Act.
• Development of application(s) to acquire the return authorisation for Space rider mission.