Rules governing rockets and space launch

August 30, 2021 improbableventuresLeave a comment

Have you ever wondered what the rules are when it comes to rocket launches? A rocket is basically a bomb with a hole poked in one end, and they sometimes fail catastrophically. Are there any laws governing this activity, or is it a total free for all? Aside from exploding on the pad, what if your rocket (or parts of it) land on someone else’s private property or injured someone? Do you need some sort of clearance from the government to launch a rocket?

Volumes of books could be written with answers to these questions, but I will just highlight a couple of important federal laws and regulations that govern large commercial rockets and space launch activity in the United States. My background is in law, so it’s only natural for me to pay extra attention to the laws and regulations for space flight.

rocket launching into the sky, with large smoke cloud below — rocket lab launch. image credit: new york times

International Traffic in Arms Regulations

One fundamental set of requirements is the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”). These regulations restrict the export of defense or military related technologies, as a part of US national security. Here’s a quick rundown:

What type of technologies are covered under ITAR? Defense-related articles and services, which are on the United States Munitions List (“USML”). This is basically a list of services or technologies that have been designated as defense or space related by the US government.

What’s a defense-related “article”? An article is basically either a physical item or technical data.

What does it mean if a technology is on the USML and subject to ITAR? In order to export one of these technologies (i.e., to give it to a non-US person), you would have to get an export license from the US State Department. In other words, in general, these technologies can only be shared with another US person, unless you get special approval from the State Department.

What are the categories in the United States Munitions List?

Firearms, Close Assault Weapons and Combat Shotguns
Guns and Armament
Ammunition/Ordnance
Launch Vehicles, Guided Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Mines
Explosives and Energetic Materials, Propellants, Incendiary Agents, and Their Constituents
Surface Vessels of War and Special Naval Equipment
Ground Vehicles
Aircraft and Related Articles
Military Training Equipment and Training
Personal Protective Equipment
Military Electronics
Fire Control, Range Finder, Optical and Guidance and Control Equipment, Night vision goggles
Materials and Miscellaneous Articles
Toxicological Agents, Including Chemical Agents, Biological Agents, and Associated Equipment
Spacecraft and Related Articles
Nuclear Weapons Related Articles
Classified Articles, Technical Data, and Defense Services Not Otherwise Enumerated
Directed Energy Weapons
Gas Turbine Engines and Associated Equipment
Submersible Vessels and Related Articles
Articles, Technical Data, and Defense Services Not Otherwise Enumerated

Who legally enforces ITAR? The US Department of State Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (“DDTC”) interprets and enforces ITAR.

Who physically enforces ITAR? The US Department of Homeland Security enforces ITAR. Specifically, Special Agents under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), along with US Customs and Border Protection Officers physically inspect imports and exports at US border crossings and international airports.

Registration. All manufacturers (as well as exporters and brokers) of defense articles are required to register with the State Department.

Satellites and their components. Prior to 1992, satellites components were considered munitions, subject to ITAR and enforcement by the State Department. However, during the mid-1990s, the US Commerce Department took on responsibility for regulating communications satellites, under the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”).

Arms Export Control Act

Another major related law is the Arms Export Control Act (“AECA”). This law gives the US President the authority to control imports and exports of defense articles. It requires foreign governments receiving any weapons from the US to use them only in self-defense. The law also places certain restrictions on US arms traders and manufacturers. If they sell sensitive technologies to “trusted” parties, thorough documentation is required, and they are completely prohibited from selling those technologies to certain other parties.

Export Administration Regulations

One other significant set of requirements governing rocket launches and space activity is the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”). These regulations govern whether something may be exported from the US, and whether it may be transferred from one person to another in a foreign country. The US Commerce Department administers these regulations.

Similar to the US Munitions List under ITAR, the EAR has its own Commerce Control List (CCL). This is a list of items that may have military use and not just commercial use. The vast majority of what’s covered under the EAR are just commercial exports and are not on the CCL.

What counts as an “export”? An export could be any of the following:

1.An actual shipment of an item outside the US;

2. Releasing or transferring technology (including source code) to a foreign person within the US;

3. Transferring registration, control, or ownership of spacecraft, in certain circumstances.

General Prohibitions. The EAR contains a list of 10 General Prohibitions. I won’t list them all in excruciating detail here, but basically there are certain things that are prohibited when it comes to exports, and they’re all more or less common sense. Unless you have a license or an exception applies, you cannot export anything to certain countries (e.g. North Korea, Iran, Syria, etc.), or to an end-user (or end-use) that is specifically prohibited. You can’t export things that are on the CCL (i.e., that have potential military use). You cannot perform certain activities that are related to nuclear explosives, missiles, chemical weapons, or biological weapons. You also cannot export things that even pass through a list of certain countries (e.g. North Korea again, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and about a dozen others) without a license. Finally – you cannot violate the terms or conditions of a license, license exception, or any order issued under the EAR, and you also cannot export, transfer, forward, or do anything else with an item subject to the EAR with the knowledge that a violation of the EAR would occur.

Summary

These are just a few of the laws or regulations that govern the aerospace industry and space activities, but they are three of the biggest and most important to know about.

How to build a rocket, or achieve any goal, part 3: Create a plan

August 18, 2021 improbableventuresLeave a comment

By this point, I had decided that I wanted to build – and ultimately launch – a high power rocket. I had done some preliminary research to make sure I wasn’t crazy, that this was actually doable, and that I had some rough idea of where to start. Now what?

rolled up paper blueprints — image credit: adobe stock

I broke the goal down into the steps necessary to get there. If a step didn’t seem manageable, I broke it down further into smaller steps until it was. Here are what the steps looked like for me:

Start simple. Buy a small low power rocket kit, build it, and launch. I ended up building two: the Crossfire and Amazon, both Estes brand rockets.
Next, buy a larger kit (low to medium power), build it and launch it. For this, I built the Estes “Mean Machine,” a tall thin rocket that can fly on slightly more powerful motors.
Learn more about the electronics in a rocket, like how a flight computer works.
Get an amateur (“ham”) radio license. Of course, you can absolutely build and launch a rocket that has no onboard electronics. The rocket has everything needed to go up, successfully deploy a parachute, and return safely to the ground without anything fancy. But there are a lot of cool electronics you can add, and some even allow live data transferred through radio waves (which is called telemetry). The more I learned about this, I realized that in order to legally use a flight computer with telemetry, I needed to have a basic ham radio license.
Build a workshop. We have a small house, and I had been using our family kitchen table for my rocket projects, but I really needed a dedicated space for tools and construction. I decided to take our old garden shed in the back yard and renovate it into a usable workshop space.
Finally, build a larger high power rocket with electronics bay – and launch it.

You can see how this plan is supposed to work. I couldn’t necessarily just jump to the last bullet and skip everything else. I mean, I could, in the same sense that I could theoretically just decide to run a marathon with zero training or running experience. It’s not a good idea and isn’t going to end well.

I’d never built a rocket before, even a small one, and it made much more sense to start with something easier and gain a better understanding of what I’m doing. A lot of things could easily go wrong, especially in a hobby involving explosives.

All of these bullet points or steps could be broken down further into smaller steps. Even with the very first bullet above – build a small, low power kit – I had to choose one and actually build it. The construction process didn’t take a terribly long time, but it involved a lot of cutting and sanding and gluing, and later, priming and painting. It also required that I understand what else is needed in order to launch: rocket kits don’t come with motors, which must be bought separately, and they don’t come with electronic launch controllers or launch pads, which also must be bought separately. I had to figure out how to install the motor, set up the launch pad and connect the controller to ignite the motor, and of course, ensure I understood the rules for a safe launch. And I had to figure out where exactly I could launch – something that turned out to be surprisingly difficult. You need a big, open area without any trees nearby – because the rocket will very likely descend under parachute into a tree, forever out of your reach. In a city or urban area, this can be hard to find.

Other steps required even more work and could be broken down further. Transforming the shed in our back yard into a workshop required putting in windows (where it had none), replacing the door, cleaning out a bunch of junk and hauling it away, installing a butcher block workbench, and running wires out to the shed from the main electrical panel in the house for electricity (outlets and lights).

How to create your plan

All right – so you’ve given it some thought, come up with a specific goal, and done a bit of research. The toughest part is now out of the way. Congrats!

Creating a plan doesn’t have to be difficult, and in fact it can be motivating. You may be overwhelmed if you think about your overall goal – where do you even start? But if you can break it down into smaller steps, each of them will feel much more achievable.

Let’s use the example mentioned earlier: say you’ve always wanted to run a marathon, and you have absolutely no running experience. You might feel like the goal is so far out of reach that it’s hopeless. But there’s no reason to be so pessimistic. Instead, you could create a plan where you start out by going for very short jogs, once or twice a day. Start as small as needed. Even if you’re totally winded or doubled over with a painful cramp after just a couple of blocks, that’s fine – you just want to start with something manageable and keep repeating it, consistently. After a few days your muscles will start to get used to this, and you won’t feel as sore or as winded. You can gradually expand to run longer distances.

Your plan would of course depend on your starting skill level: have you never run before in your life? Or have you previously completed a dozen 5k runs? It would also depend on how much time you have before your marathon: is it six months from today, or is it next week?

Realistically, if you had six months to train, you could put together a 26 week plan. In the first week, you might run just a quarter mile – a few blocks – once a day. In week 2, you could increase the distance to a half-mile every day, and by week 4, perhaps one mile each day. By the end of the second month, you could be running a 3 miles (a 5k) every day, and so on. It could be this simple – increasing distance gradually – or your plan could incorporate other aspects of training, like different types of exercise, a change in diet, having a buddy keep you accountable, etc.

More generally, your plan just depends on two variables: (1) the distance or gap between where you are today and where you want to be (your end goal), and (2) the passage of time. All else being equal, the larger the gap – the more ambitious the goal – the more time you will likely need to achieve it. But it’s completely achievable.

How to build a rocket, or achieve any goal, step 2: Research

August 2, 2021August 2, 2021 improbableventuresLeave a comment

As I mentioned in the last post, it is impossible to accurately convey just how little I knew about the whole subject of rockets when I first started thinking about building and launching one. I was completely in the dark, waving my arms around wildly in front of me and unable to see anything. Incidentally, this is my typical research technique.

I initially turned to my good friends Google, Reddit, and Quora. As you might guess, this led me down all sorts of rabbit holes. But this is exactly what you want at this early stage.

I discovered, for example, that there are two large organizations in the US dedicated to amateur rocketry: the National Association of Rocketry (NAR) and Tripoli. Both have been around for decades, and both have hundreds of local clubs spread out across the country – clubs full of other people who share similar interests in rocketry and that periodically host rocket launch events.

I found one local Seattle club, Washington Aerospace Club (WAC), and joined right away. I attended a couple of meetings in person (just before the pandemic hit) and was fascinated that there was a local group of like-minded people who were just really into building and launching rockets. I made some new friends and also found a couple much more experienced people as mentors. More on that below, but finding a mentor is highly recommended.

There’s a lot to learn about building a rocket, whether small or large. There’s also a lot to learn about launching a rocket. Construction techniques, types of rockets, motor sizes and classes, recovery methods, launch pads and towers – the list goes on without end, and that’s without getting into the more sophisticated systems and electronics. I’ve written extensively in previous articles on my blog about many of the basics in rocketry for those who are interested.

But the point is that I needed a crash course, a rockets 101, and I had to do some serious information gathering to even have a bare minimum of competence in setting a goal.

How to do your own research

To take another potential non-rocketry goal at random: let’s say I’ve always wanted to climb Mt. Everest, or some other large and ominous mountain. I know absolutely nothing about this, so where would I start?

I know my end goal in this scenario – scale the mountain and get to the summit, preferably alive. That’s pretty clear, specific, and measurable. But how exactly do I get there, literally or figuratively?

I don’t know enough to even come up with a reasonable plan at this stage. I’d need to do some research, which would start out by brainstorming and asking logical questions: where does a person start (physically) when beginning the climb? Some sort of base camp? Is this something you can do alone, or do people generally hire a professional guide and/or go in a group with others? What kind of clothing and equipment do I need? How long does something like this take – days, weeks, months? Do you have to train ahead of time? What dangers do I need to be aware of? The list of questions goes on.

Or let’s take a less lofty goal, but one that to many people is much more important: passing a big exam you have coming up in the future. Maybe it’s your final exam in a class, or maybe it’s a one-time licensing exam for your career. You know the goal here: get a passing score, or get as high a score as possible. That’s specific and measurable, and almost entirely within your control. But how to do it?

This might not appear as extreme as scaling Mt. Everest, but it can still be pretty stressful and demanding, depending on the subject and the exam, and on what kind of test-taker you are. You wouldn’t be starting out totally in the dark – at the very least, you know that you need to study a lot, and you probably know how to study relatively well.

But even in this scenario, you would benefit from doing some research. We can all stand to improve our study habits, and there are lots of tips and tricks and “hacks” you could use to help. For a really big test, where you will need to devote countless hours to studying, it might be worth looking into ways to boost your studying and use your time more efficiently. Maybe flashcards would help you with memorization, or maybe a buddy will keep you accountable to ensure you’re not slacking.

As mentioned earlier, a mentor can be very helpful as well. It may not be strictly required or worthwhile depending on the particular goal – for example, you probably don’t need a mentor to pass a test, even a very big and difficult one. But if you were planning to scale Mt. Everest, or even run a marathon, a mentor could really come in handy. Receiving the benefits of advice and guidance from someone who has real life experience in your field is absolutely invaluable.

So go ahead – spend a few hours on Google or Wikipedia, get involved in a local organization or club, find a mentor, and do some old fashioned research. And then you’ll be ready for step 3: creating your plan.