He survives because he's a fan-favorite character.
Hasbro originally wanted to give our favorite Buzzzzzzzing Preadcon a Lava Bath at the beginning of Season 2, but those awesome guys at Mainframe, Larry DiTillo and Bob Forward, convinced the guys in Rhode Island that Waspinator was a fan-favorite character (Though the character was allegedly blasted to bits every episode because it was supposed to put a temporary end to his Buzzing, drawling voice which they found annoying... Invariably, it created a running joke) so those dummies Terrorsaur and Scorponok took the plunge instead.
Hell, Waspinator is so popular, he beat out several iconic G1 Characters AND Erector for Hall of Fame induction back in 2011.

 

it's simple: Waspinator is immortal.

 

His great Aunt Arcee. It's not just Rattrap either. Optimus claimed in BM that the original Optimus Prime was his ancestor, so it could be possible that he's a descendant of Starscream, though, if ever made canon it would ruin what I have in mind for Waspy in my fanfic.

 

Waspinator can't die because the universe hates Waspinator, so he must suffer being blown up forever.

 

Yeah, one day Waspinator was at a planetarium, and Terrorsaur was like: "Look Waspinator, it's the Universe!"

And Waspinator was like: "Wazzpinator thinks the Univerzze iz dumb."

Then the Universe was like: "OMG RUDE!!!"

So instead of letting Waspinator die, the Universe just forces Waspinator to suffer as punishment.

 

Waspinsator is nigh immortal

 

Kryotek smuggled some liquid dark energon into the slammer where Megs and waspy were being held. Megs logically volunteered waspy to drink the elixir and enduce a brief berzerk attack to break them out.

Now, it wasn't enough to take waspy permanently off-line, but it did result in permanent toxification of his spark. Death and the matrix both reject him, only a deciple of Unicron could ever hope to cleanse waspy of the curse, and Megatron uses this as a leash for waspy, claiming to know the cure but promising to administer it after waspy's paid off his debt to him.

Ladies and gents, instant fanfic, just add water.
-Kronatron.

 

This.

Also, even though it wasn't a thing in BW, miraculously he never truly had the Rossum's Trinity disrupted. Probably.

 

Best Theory Ever.

 

An interesting theory, though flawed. Waspinator got destroyed long before Possession. I believe the first time was in Chain of Command, where he got tore up by Rhinox's chain guns of doom.

 

I like the theory as well. But its applications seem dubious as, as others have mentioned, other Preds have suffered equally harsh fates and were rebuilt. Inferno is probably the second most limb-scattered Predacon to Waspinator.

 

Waspinator is the real Protoform X.
Rampage is just a poser.

 

I like to speculate that Waspinator was a Duocon prior to becoming a Predacon. The Funpub fiction suggests that the Duocon process eventually damages a Transformer's mind. Damaged mind... able to handle being split into parts... that's Waspinator.

 

But consider that all we've seen of waspinator's pre-beast wars body is that of a recolored cyberjet thundercracker/skywarp which does not separate multiple components (incidentally seen only in fiction published by fun pub)

 

That's true. But he could've been de-duoconned before that point, like Battletrap was. If we're looking at the expanded material, then we already know some of the characters had more than one body prior to the theft of the Golden Disc.

 

I honestly don't think Waspinator has a damaged mind. He's never shown any signs of being mentally uns

 

Yeah Waspinator had already been slagged a bunch of times before Possession. Waspinator is one of the weakest in the struggle and the reason he survives all the time is because when hit with a blast he's more likely to fall apart at his flimsy joints rather than receive actual structural damage. It renders him ineffective and he sits the rest of the battle out to live to fight another day while the other more durable combatants seem to be more hurt by damage because they can fight on. Waspinator is the toy that will never break because he'll always just disassemble himself on impact rather than snap anything.

 

Perhaps waspinator is not a "he," but rather a "they." Waspy is gestalt and the body parts are merely lesser segments of a hive-mind whole. This is why waspinator holds entire conversations alone and refers to the self in the third person. A swarm personality learning to interact in an environment full of ego-centrics.

Another theory, the body is just a vessel that holds waspy's consciousness to experience linear time. The entity that waspinates does so outside of space and time and becomes temporarilly disembodied when the physical form experiences disrepair. Like when you're made to wait in another room while the mechanic services your car until you're ready to drive it again.

Deeeep.
-Kronatron.

 

Theory doesn't work because Waspinatior being blown up all the time was a running gag even before that.

There was an interview with Scott McNeil where he said that Waspinator was originally intended to be a more serious character. Scott came up with the voice and him dying in every episode was an intentional reference to Kenny from South Park.

Cheetor also had a bunch of spare Waspinator parts in his room. Apperently collecting them after his many "deaths"...

I always thought that there were way more stasis pods ejected from the Axelon than what was recovered in the series. Maybe most of them were blanks and the Predacons recovered them off screen transferring Waspinator's spark into a new body every time. It did seem like his spark survived regardless of the physical damage as we see him dragging himself to a CR chamber in one episode.

 

I'm just gonna say that Waspy's near indestructible, except for his joints. Those are like paper.