SpaceX and Elon Musk blast the FAA’s red tape again
Fight! Fight! Fight! Yesterday both SpaceX and Elon Musk renewed their attack on the FAA’s apparent arbitrary harassment of the company, both by slowing down development of Starship/Superheavy as well as imposing fines and delays on the company for petty issues relating to Falcon 9 launches.
First, Elon Musk sent out a tweet on X, highlighting a successful static fire launchpad engine test of the Starship prototype the company plans to fly on the sixth Starship/Superheavy orbital flight. As he noted with apparent disgust, “Flight 5 is built and ready to fly. Flight 6 will be ready to fly before Flight 5 even gets approved by FAA!”
Second, and with more force, the company released a public letter that it has sent to the leading Republican and Democratic representatives of the House and Senate committees that have direct authority over space activities, outlining its issues with the FAA’s behavior. The letter details at length the irrational and inexplicable slowdown in FAA approvals that caused two launches last summer to occur in a confused manner, with SpaceX clearly given the impression by the FAA that it could go ahead which the FAA now denies. In one case the FAA claims SpaceX removed without its permission a poll of mission control during its countdown procedure. SpaceX in its letter noted bluntly that the regulations do not require that poll, and that the company already requires two other polls during the count.
In another case involving SpaceX’s plan to change to a new mission control center, the company submitted its request in June, and after two months the FAA finally approved the control center’s use for one launch, but had still not approved it for a second. The first launch went off, so SpaceX thus rightly assumed it could use the control center for the second. Yet the FAA is now trying to fine SpaceX for that second launch.
The third case of FAA misconduct appears to be the most egregious. SpaceX had built a new propellant facility that was safer because it was farther from publicly accessible areas. The FAA approved use of that facility for a crew launch to ISS, but delayed its official refusal for a different launch. SpaceX however had that other approval in which the FAA clearly stated the facility posed no safety issues, so it decided to go ahead with the second launch, with an FAA official during the countdown present and making no objections.
Here’s where things got really stupid. During the countdown the FAA suddenly delivered a letter to SpaceX denying it permission to launch, because it was using a propellant facility the FAA had already approved. Mission control called the FAA, telling the official who picked up the phone that “it was unsafe for the FAA to be sending these types of communications during operations … on the fly.” That official agreed, and “did not direct SpaceX to stand down or pull its license.” The launch proceeded safely. And now the FAA wants to fine SpaceX for doing so.
Expect the FAA to attempt to defend these strange actions. A former FAA administrator is already doing so, quite ineffectively if you ask me.
Trump defiant
Whether SpaceX’s pushback now can force a change at the FAA however is very very unlikely, as long as the present White House is controlled by the Democratic Party. That party now sees Musk as a political opponent, and has clearly demonstrated in the past three years its eager willingness to censor, blacklist, arrest, and even prosecute such opponents. It is now giving Musk and his space company that treatment, and if it maintains control of the presidency after the November election it is going to certainly escalate that persecution, aggressively.
And even if the Democrats lose in November, they are deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy of the executive branch. It will not be easy to force that bureaucracy, including the FAA, to change that its behavior. Doing so will require courage and forceful unwaivering action. Donald Trump appears to now have that courage (see the picture to the right), but it remains entirely unknown whether the people he appoints will have that courage also.
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This is so troubling. Yes, the FAA is wrong and slow and does not appreciate the up side for the US and space exploration. But they are approving launches. Flight 5 is approved. Another exciting success, like we saw with Flight 4, results in a big boost in public awareness, excitement and confidence in what SpaceX is accomplishing.
The best, most direct way for SpaceX to push the FAA into approving future launches is to do flight 5 now. Show that the booster can land on a specific location in the Gulf, show that the Starship can also come down, the flaps flapping as designed, to a controlled and filmed Indian ocean touchdown.
Thanks for this update. I had seen lots of people looking at the original complaint, and even is sympathetic to SpaceX, saying “but how would they dare to launch without these approvals?” This additional information that they had launched with approval, and then had that approval yanked for the next launch certainly explains things.