Range safety

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In rocketry, range safety or flight safety is ensured by monitoring the flight paths of missiles and launch vehicles, and enforcing strict guidelines for rocket construction and ground-based operations. Various measures are implemented to protect nearby people, buildings and infrastructure from the dangers of a rocket launch.

Governments maintain many regulations on launch vehicles and associated ground systems, prescribing the procedures that need to be followed by any entity aiming to launch into space. Areas in which one or more spaceports are operated, or ranges, issue out closely guarded exclusion zones for air and sea traffic prior to launch, and close off certain areas to the public.

Contingency procedures are performed if a vehicle malfunctions or veers off course mid-flight. Sometimes, a range safety officer (RSO) commands the flight or mission to end by sending a signal to the flight termination system (FTS) aboard the rocket. This takes measures to eliminate any means with which the vehicle could endanger anyone or anything on the ground, most often through the use of explosives. Flight termination could also be triggered autonomously by a separate computer unit on the rocket itself.