§ 450.115 Flight safety analysis methods.

(a) Scope of the analysis. An operator's flight safety analysis method must account for all reasonably foreseeable events and failures of safety-critical systems during nominal and non-nominal launch or reentry that could jeopardize public safety. (b) Level of fidelity of the analysis. An operator's flight safety analysis method must have a level of fidelity sufficient to— (1) Demonstrate that any risk to the public satisfies the safety criteria of § 450.101, including the use of mitigations, accounting for all known sources of uncertainty, using a means of compliance accepted by the Administrator; and (2) Identify the dominant source of each type of public risk with a criterion in § 450.101(a) or (b) in terms of phase of flight, source of hazard (such as toxic exposure, inert, or explosive debris), and failure mode. (c) Application requirements. An applicant must submit a description of the flight safety analysis methodology, including identification of: (1) The scientific principles and statistical methods used; (2) All assumptions and their justifications; (3) The rationale for the level of fidelity; (4) The evidence for validation and verification required by § 450.101(g); (5) The extent to which the benchmark conditions are comparable to the foreseeable conditions of the intended operations; and (6) The extent to which risk mitigations were accounted for in the analyses.