Standardization News

ASTM’s commercial spaceflight committee (F47) has approved a new standard that will help to enhance commercial spaceflight safety. The standard (F3550) provides guidance to space flight operators on classifying safety-related events.  

“This new standard will help to classify events based on severity and impact,” says ASTM International member Oscar Garcia, chairman and CEO, InterFlight Global Corporation. “The severity is informed by event attributes, such as departure from intended safety standard or margins, and ranges from negligible to catastrophic.”

Garcia notes that the guide includes 38 unique types of events and will be subject to periodic updates based on industry flight safety data. It will inform future voluntary safety programs and related tools to enhance commercial spaceflight industry safety. 

According to Garcia, the new standard will evolve as the commercial spaceflight industry grows. 

“As spaceflight cadence and mission profiles evolve, it is possible that the impact and severity classification categories may be fine-tuned and adapted to new factors and realities as frequencies of flights increase,” says Garcia.  

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