SpaceX, Sea Launch, and FAA Licensing

At this point we’re all familiar with SpaceX’s ocean landing platform for its first stage boosters.  Very cool.

Still, it was exciting to see this recent Business Insider article about SpaceX’s plans to go further with a more robust sea-going platform.

“SpaceX is building floating, superheavy-class spaceports for Mars, moon & hypersonic travel around Earth,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.

…

The concept of ocean-platform launches is not new. A company called Sea Launch, for example, first launched an orbital-class Zenit rocket from a platform in the middle of the … [Pacific] Ocean in March 1999. (The company used to be managed by Boeing but is now owned by a Russian airline.)

I know the first question that pops into your head was whether either of these projects needs or needed an FAA license to launch.  After all, if you launch from the ocean, you might be launching outside the United States.  Sea Launch did just that, traveling to international waters at the equator in the Pacific.

The law has answers.

SpaceX.  I don’t know where SpaceX plans to place its ocean-going platform, but let’s make the question a little harder by assuming it will be located in international waters, outside of U.S. territory.  After all, the Commercial Space Launch Act, 51 USC ch. 509 (Ch. 509) is clear that any person* launching from the United States needs an FAA license, regardless of nationality.  51 USC 50904(a)(1).  What matters for SpaceX is that section 50904(a)(2) says that a citizen of the United States must obtain a license to launch outside the United States.  What kind of U.S. citizen?  One defined by section 50902(1)(A) or (B) as either an individual who is a U.S. citizen or an entity organized or existing under U.S. law or the laws of one its states.  Thus, if SpaceX is a U.S. corporation, it could need an FAA license even if it launched from international waters.

Sea Launch.  This one is harder to figure out.  However, when we turn to the law’s criteria, we can see how the FAA decided that Sea Launch needed an FAA license.  Section 50904(a)(3) says that if you are a weird U.S. citizen (meaning you’re not actually a U.S. citizen) and you launch from international waters, and no other country has agreed with the U.S. to license you, you need a license.  Wait, you say.  What the heck do you mean by a “weird U.S. citizen”?  I confess it’s not exactly a statutory term, but I wanted to get your attention.  It’s better than saying “if you’re a 50902(1)(C) citizen,” which would just make you stop reading.  Regardless, this so-called U.S. citizen is actually a foreign entity controlled by a real U.S. citizen.  As the Business Insider article noted, Boeing, a real U.S. citizen, controlled Sea Launch, a foreign entity, back in the day.  So, the FAA required Sea Launch to get a license.

Lastly, if you are looking for a small e-novelette about an ocean-going platform converted to a seastead, check out Far Flung, where I loosely modeled the seastead on the Sea Launch platform.   If just three of you pick up a copy, I’ll use the royalties for my Fourth of July milkshake.

*Any person who is not the U.S. government.