SpaceX to FAA: Allow launches to resume before completion of July 11th launch failure investigation
SpaceX on July 15, 2024 submitted a request to the FAA to quickly determine that the July 11th Falcon-9 launch failure posed no threat to public safety, and thus allow the company to resume Falcon 9 launches before the investigation of that failure is completed.
The FAA has two means of allowing a rocket to return to flight operations following a mishap. The first is that it approves a launch operator-led mishap investigation final report, which would include “the identification of any corrective actions.” Those actions need to be put in place and all related licensing requirement need to be met.
The other option is for a public safety determination to be issued. This would be an option if “the mishap did not involve safety-critical systems or otherwise jeopardize public safety,” according to the FAA.
“The FAA will review the request, and if in agreement, authorize a return to flight operations while the mishap investigation remains open and provided the operator meets all relevant licensing requirements,” the FAA wrote on its website.
SpaceX is apparently expecting the FAA to quickly approve this request, as it has now scheduled its next Falcon 9 launch for July 19, 2024, at the end of this week.
The lower level workers at the FAA probably want to get out of the way, but they have to obey orders from above, and it is my suspicion that the White House is applying pressure to make life hard for SpaceX. As I have noted, the FAA has not required the same level of due diligence from either NASA and its SLS rocket, or Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX on July 15, 2024 submitted a request to the FAA to quickly determine that the July 11th Falcon-9 launch failure posed no threat to public safety, and thus allow the company to resume Falcon 9 launches before the investigation of that failure is completed.
The FAA has two means of allowing a rocket to return to flight operations following a mishap. The first is that it approves a launch operator-led mishap investigation final report, which would include “the identification of any corrective actions.” Those actions need to be put in place and all related licensing requirement need to be met.
The other option is for a public safety determination to be issued. This would be an option if “the mishap did not involve safety-critical systems or otherwise jeopardize public safety,” according to the FAA.
“The FAA will review the request, and if in agreement, authorize a return to flight operations while the mishap investigation remains open and provided the operator meets all relevant licensing requirements,” the FAA wrote on its website.
SpaceX is apparently expecting the FAA to quickly approve this request, as it has now scheduled its next Falcon 9 launch for July 19, 2024, at the end of this week.
The lower level workers at the FAA probably want to get out of the way, but they have to obey orders from above, and it is my suspicion that the White House is applying pressure to make life hard for SpaceX. As I have noted, the FAA has not required the same level of due diligence from either NASA and its SLS rocket, or Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SLS worked–Starliner? Yeah–that needs looking at.
My complaint about the SLS is that it should have been flying 5 years after the Shuttle program shut down. It should be old hand by now.
Starliner needs to be totally redesigned to make it fully serviceable. Do not worry, I work on cars for fun and have the very same complaints about modern cars. My next project is replacing the Phazers and timing sensors on a Ford f-150. Which are not accessible without taking the whole front end off the truck and removing the whole front of the engine. 15 hours of work for me.
Engineers tend to jamb too much stuff into too small of spaces and forget about servicing after assembly.
If I had Elon Musk money, I’d pay you to build a largely computer free car made to be easily worked on.
My complaint about the SLS is that it should have been flying 5 years after the Shuttle program shut down. It should be old hand by now.
That was the whole public justification offered for it, right? That they could leverage all that legacy Shuttle hardware and infrastructure to cut the costs and development schedule. As Bill Nelson put it in 2011, “The cost of the rocket over a five- to six-year period in the NASA authorization bill was to be no more than $11.5 billion. This costs $10 billion for the rocket. If we can’t do a rocket for $11.5 billion, we ought to close up shop.” Of course, as we all know, the real reason was not about leveraging stuff, but preserving jobs (and campaign donations).
Of course, had Griffin gone for SLS (or something that looked like it) straight up as the sole rocket for Constellation in 2005, I suppose that would be an obvious way to move the schedule up five years (2017?). Of course, that just begs the question of what NASA would have *done* with it. Orion wouldn’t have been ready, let alone any mission hardware.
NASASpaceFlight has a video on the FAA’s role in this kind of investigation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-hKxKUrxY (17 minutes: “Why Can’t Falcon 9 Fly?”)
John Galloway lists several reasons why the FAA would get involved and checks-off which reasons don’t apply, a couple that might, and a couple that he thinks do apply to give the FAA its involvement. He also reminds us, at the end, [Spoiler Alert? Maybe?] of what Robert tells us: The FAA has some limited knowledge of spaceflight problems, but they don’t know the rocket, so SpaceX does the investigation on its own rocket and reports its findings to the FAA.
My own thought is that this almost certainly is not a design error but a quality control error in the expendable upper stage. Unlike the booster stages, none of the upper stages are can be reused after proving that they are assembled properly.