FAA announces it has rubber-stamped SpaceX’s investigation of the November Starship/Superheavy test launch
The FAA yesterday announced that it has completed its review of SpaceX’s investigation of the November Starship/Superheavy test launch and has approved the company’s conclusions.
The Federal Aviation Administration has concluded its review of SpaceX’s investigation of the second Starship launch in November, with the regulator saying Monday that it accepted the “root causes and 17 corrective actions” identified by the company.
While this means the investigation is now closed, SpaceX must implement all the corrective actions and apply for a modified launch license before it can fly Starship again. “The FAA is evaluating SpaceX’s license modification request and expects SpaceX to submit additional required information before a final determination can be made,” the regulator said in a statement Monday.
You can read a SpaceX update of its investigation here. As previously reported, when Starship vented the extra oxygen carried to better simulate a payload it caused “a combustion event” and fires that cut off communications.
This resulted in a commanded shut down of all six engines prior to completion of the ascent burn, followed by the Autonomous Flight Safety System detecting a mission rule violation and activating the flight termination system, leading to vehicle breakup. The flight test’s conclusion came when the spacecraft was as at an altitude of ~150 km and a velocity of ~24,000 km/h, becoming the first Starship to reach outer space.
Despite SpaceX’s report, which states the company “has implemented hardware changes” to prevent a reoccurance, the FAA has still not yet issued a launch license. Based on these updates and Elon Musk’s own prediction, it appears a license will be forthcoming in the next two weeks, matching my December prediction of a March launch. Expect SpaceX to quickly launch, as it has “more Starships ready to fly,” and it wants to fly them fast in order to refine the engineering so as to move to operational flights.
It is also possible that the FAA will continue to slow-walk its approvals, and SpaceX might be left hanging for more than two weeks. Had the government not been involved, all signs suggested that SpaceX would have done its third test flight in January, and would have now been gearing up for its fourth flight. That was the kind of pace SpaceX set when it was doing its first Starship test flights during the Trump administration. The government under Joe Biden’s presidency however is not allowing that kind of launch pace.
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 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
The FAA yesterday announced that it has completed its review of SpaceX’s investigation of the November Starship/Superheavy test launch and has approved the company’s conclusions.
The Federal Aviation Administration has concluded its review of SpaceX’s investigation of the second Starship launch in November, with the regulator saying Monday that it accepted the “root causes and 17 corrective actions” identified by the company.
While this means the investigation is now closed, SpaceX must implement all the corrective actions and apply for a modified launch license before it can fly Starship again. “The FAA is evaluating SpaceX’s license modification request and expects SpaceX to submit additional required information before a final determination can be made,” the regulator said in a statement Monday.
You can read a SpaceX update of its investigation here. As previously reported, when Starship vented the extra oxygen carried to better simulate a payload it caused “a combustion event” and fires that cut off communications.
This resulted in a commanded shut down of all six engines prior to completion of the ascent burn, followed by the Autonomous Flight Safety System detecting a mission rule violation and activating the flight termination system, leading to vehicle breakup. The flight test’s conclusion came when the spacecraft was as at an altitude of ~150 km and a velocity of ~24,000 km/h, becoming the first Starship to reach outer space.
Despite SpaceX’s report, which states the company “has implemented hardware changes” to prevent a reoccurance, the FAA has still not yet issued a launch license. Based on these updates and Elon Musk’s own prediction, it appears a license will be forthcoming in the next two weeks, matching my December prediction of a March launch. Expect SpaceX to quickly launch, as it has “more Starships ready to fly,” and it wants to fly them fast in order to refine the engineering so as to move to operational flights.
It is also possible that the FAA will continue to slow-walk its approvals, and SpaceX might be left hanging for more than two weeks. Had the government not been involved, all signs suggested that SpaceX would have done its third test flight in January, and would have now been gearing up for its fourth flight. That was the kind of pace SpaceX set when it was doing its first Starship test flights during the Trump administration. The government under Joe Biden’s presidency however is not allowing that kind of launch pace.
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 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
The current booster/starship pair has been experiencing multiple problems during testing, as has the pad infrastructure, and is not currently ready for flight even if they had a launch license in hand. SpaceX might have pushed harder to resolve these issues faster if they anticipated having a license earlier, but at the moment it is simply untrue to say that they could have launched in January. They started their launch campaign many weeks ago, and have not yet managed a successful WDR despite predicting one would happen several times.
“… The current booster/starship pair has been experiencing multiple problems during testing, as has the pad infrastructure …”
where I fault the Feds is on their restriction of launches of all types from Boca. Before Biden, there were frequent short hop launches of Starship. On May, 2021 SpaceX finally succeeded in getting Starship to land cleanly. Since then, no short flights like that allowed.
In the 3 years since May, 2021 wouldn’t the Starship program have benefited from frequent booster launches which tested their ability to launch the booster and land it safely? I am worried that SpaceX is rolling the dice on these orbital launch tests. One spectacular failure that rains debris down on a Caribbean island will set us back years. Maybe even put Elon on trial.
David Eastman:
You are absolutely right. Does Mr. Zimmerman even care? (By the way, I had already noticed this here what you stated above in short form a few days ago)
Questioner: Mr. Zimmerman of course cares, or he wouldn’t be writing this site every day. He also disagrees with you and David Eastman, though he also recognizes that he could be wrong.
Do you?
Questioner: I’m a lot closer to Mr. Zimmerman’s viewpoint than yours. SpaceX would certainly be moving much faster if the various government agencies weren’t slowing them down. I even agree that there is some deliberate delay and obstruction for political reasons. Our only disagreement is on how much of that there is. I try and keep my eye on the observable facts and public statements to make my determination, and call it out when I think people are getting ahead of the data.
For the Ship 28/Booster 10 stack that is currently in pre-launch flow, it is undeniably the case that the vehicle is not currently ready for launch. They began testing this stack in late January, and made their first WDR attempt on Feb 14th, and haven’t been able to get a clean WDR after two attempts. The vehicle has been de-stacked and the booster is back in the factory for more work. From publicly available data, we cannot know the true state of the vehicle and whether it could have in fact already done a test flight if the permit had been in hand, but from what we can see, that does not seem to be the case.
David Eastman: Even with the issues you note for this prototype stack, I still think SpaceX would have launched it in January if they had had their druthers. When they were launching Starships regularly in 2020-2021, they sometimes did so with less-than-ideal prototypes, partly to obtain some test data from them, and partly to get them out of the way for future more advanced versions.
In fact, the faster they launch these prototypes the more likely they will be launching their most advanced iterations. Being forced to wait means they can’t test upgrades with the pace they’d like.
Every space flight out of the US does carry insurance. Even NASA flights.
One the cargo, passengers, possibly the rocket and anything it might land on.
Several million in premiums per flight.
We also do not know exactly what modifications have been done during the downtime. SpaceX has had a lot of downtime over the past three years, and they have made many changes during those times. They have so much downtime that they seem willing to fill it with upgrades and improvements.
Some of those changes were due to the investigation from the latest test launch. From the update at Robert’s link:
The failed wet dress rehearsals could be due to upgrades that affected the rest of the system in unexpected ways. The old configuration may have been good to go, but making changes can complicate things in unexpected ways. The philosophy is rapid development, but doing things the FAA-way seems to reduce the pace at which they are able to iterate. This reduced pace may make SpaceX more reliant on modeling and simulations, which are only as good as the inputs and assumptions that they make — the same assumptions that test flights are designed to prove or disprove.
Another reason that the FAA may not be the best organization to regulate research and development: they are trained and aimed toward permanent solutions to operational systems. They are not attuned to trial and error, testing something different just to see how well it works. They seek solutions that won’t ever have to be modified in the future, because they are the right solutions. Research is a completely different philosophy. Development also desires trial and error. It is hard to invent something new when the FAA desires solutions that are already tried and true.
Well said, Edward