Tag: SpaceX

FAA administrator claims SpaceX wasn’t following regulations; SpaceX says that’s false

4:08 pm

FAA administrator Mike Whitaker today said this to SpaceX:
FAA administrator Mike Whitaker today to SpaceX:
“Nice company you have there. Shame if something
happened to it.”

In a hearing today before the House transportation committee, the FAA administrator Mike Whitaker claimed repeatedly that the red tape his agency has imposed on SpaceX, as well as the fines it recently imposed on the company, were due to safety concerns as well as SpaceX not following the regulations and even launching without a license.

Mike Whitaker, the administrator of the FAA, told lawmakers on the House Transportation Committee that his decision to delay SpaceX’s launch for a few months is grounded in safety, and defended the $633,000 fine his agency has proposed against SpaceX as the “only tool” the FAA has to ensure that Musk’s company follows the rules.

… [Kevin Kiley (R-California)] argued those reviews don’t have anything to do with safety, prompting Whitaker to shoot back: “I think the sonic boom analysis [related to returning Superheavy back to Boca Chica] is a safety related incident. I think the two month delay is necessary to comply with the launch requirements, and I think that’s an important part of safety culture.”

When Kiley asked what can be done to move the launch up, Whitaker said, “complying with regulations would be the best path.”

SpaceX immediately responded with a detailed letter, published on X, stating in summary as follows:

FAA Administrator Whitaker made several incorrect statements today regarding SpaceX. In fact, every statement he made was incorrect.

The letter then detailed very carefully the falseness of each of Whitaker’s claims. You can read images of the letter here and here. The company noted:

It is deeply concerning that the administrator does not appear to have accurate information immediately available to him with respect to SpaceX licensing matters.

Based on SpaceX’s detailed response, it appears its lawyers are extremely confident it has a very good legal position, and will win in court. Moreover, the politics strongly argue in favor of fighting now. Though such a fight might delay further Superheavy/Starship test launches in the near term, in the long run a victory has a good chance of cleaning up the red tape for good, so that future work will proceed without this harassment.

Whitaker’s testimony also suggests strongly that he — a political appointee by the Biden administration –is likely the source of many of the recent delays and increased red tape that SpaceX has been forced to endure. He clearly thinks he knows better than SpaceX on these technical areas, even though his education and work history has never had anything to do with building rockets.

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SpaceX conducting salvage operations to recover a Superheavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico

9:19 am

SpaceX has apparently conducted salvage operations in the Gulf of Mexico to recover the Superheavy booster that had successfully completed a soft vertical splashdown during the fourth Starship/Superheavy test flight on June 6, 2024.

Confirmation of the recovery project came from a group of young, independent filmmakers who caught wind of the operation and chartered a boat for the 15-mile trip to the Ridgewind to see for themselves what was going on.

…After a two-and-a-half-hour cruise they were about a half mile from the Ridgewind when a drone buzzed toward them. It hovered for a moment before a voice announced through a loudspeaker: “There is a one mile exclusion zone in this area, please depart one mile away from vessel.”

The filmmakers retreated as requested, but then remained there for awhile, observing operations from a distance. They later contacted SpaceX.

The Interstellar Gateway crew reached out to SpaceX, which Leal said quickly confirmed it had contracted with Hornbeck to recover the giant booster. It asked the filmmakers to refrain from announcing the find until after the Ridgewind completed its work and began steaming to port. That happened Sunday.

The filmmakers are one of the number of independent live stream groups that record launches, and made it clear it announcing the salvage work that they respected SpaceX’s request because they knew it was entirely reasonable — to avoid safety problems that could be caused by others boating over — and that they had no desire to hinder SpaceX’s effort.

The article, from a mainstream Democratic Party propaganda source, however tried to slam SpaceX for its “secretive nature,” something that is so untrue only a Democrat shill could write it with a straight face. It also spent a lot of time criticizing the company for creating that one-mile safety exclusion zone around its salvage operations, questioning SpaceX’s “authority” to do so.

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SpaceX finds a way to extend the launch window for Europa Clipper

10:03 am

The launch window for SpaceX’s launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper to Jupiter has now been extended a full week because the company has revised the launch process and made hardware changes.

The new launch window runs from October 10th to November 6th.

Usually the two side boosters come back to land at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station so they can be reused and sometimes the core booster is recovered at sea, but not this time. All their fuel will be used to get Europa Clipper on its way to Jupiter. Piloto said SpaceX “made some hardware modifications that enable the launch vehicle to utilize all the fuel in the boosters,” but couldn’t go into detail about what they are because the information is proprietary.

[The NASA official] added that SpaceX has gained experience in flying this configuration — it’s the 11th Falcon Heavy launch — and the company has “come up with a strategy to optimize throttling of the launch vehicle to get more performance out of it.”

NASA and SpaceX have also decided to use NASA’s orbiting communications constellation during the launch instead of ground stations, which increases their flexibility and margins.

I wonder if the FAA has approved these changes. Or even if anyone there even understands them.

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SpaceX and Elon Musk blast the FAA’s red tape again

9:54 am

Are Americans finally waking up and emulating their country's founders?

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. » Read more

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SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites

8:58 am

SpaceX this morning successfully launched another 21 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

93 SpaceX
39 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 108 to 61, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 93 to 76.

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FCC commissioner slams FCC for its partisan hostility to SpaceX

10:27 am

The FCC proves its partisan hostility to SpaceX
The FCC proves its partisan hostility to SpaceX

Even as the FAA has increasingly appeared to be harassing SpaceX with red tape, FCC commissioner Brendan Carr this week slammed his own agency for what appears to be clearly partisan hostility to SpaceX in its recent decisions and public statements.

Carr noted how only last year the FCC had canceled an almost $900 million grant that it had previously awarded to SpaceX for providing rural communities internet access. When it did so, the FCC claimed that the company had failed to “demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service.”

That claim of course was absurd on its face, considering that Starlink was the only available commercial system that was actually doing this, directly to individual rural customers.

Carr noted however that this absurd FCC decision was made even more ridiculous this week by the FCC’s chairperson, Jessica Rosenworcel, who accused SpaceX of being a “monopoly” because of its success in launching Starlink satellites and providing this service ahead of everyone else.
» Read more

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Musk: We will sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” and “improper, politically-motivated behavior”

9:38 am

In a series of tweets yesterday Elon Musk announced that SpaceX is going to sue the FAA for its recent actions that have delayed development of Starship/Superheavy and have also fined the company for what appear to be petty reasons.

In the second case, the FAA threatened to fine SpaceX $633K because it had not gotten some minor approvals prior to successfully completing two launches safely. The agency gave SpaceX 30 days to respond.

Musk responded bluntly in a tweet, stating that “SpaceX will be filing suit against the FAA for regulatory overreach.” In a second tweet immediately thereafter Musk added that that the fines were “More lawfare.”

In a third tweet he stated unequivocally, “I am highly confident that discovery will show improper, politically-motivated behavior by the FAA.”

As noted in the first link above, the agency took no action against SpaceX for more than a year after those two launches, only issuing the threat to fine the company now, just before the election, and just after the company had publicly criticized the agency for its delays in issuing a launch license for the fifth Starship/Superheavy test flight. I suspect Musk has some good information of solid evidence that some officials either in the FAA or at the White House instigated this action for political reasons. An honest appraisal of the FAA’s actions sure suggests it.

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SpaceX launches two more Galileo GPS-type satellites for Europe

12:43 am

SpaceX this afternoon successfully launched two Galileo GPS-type satellites for Europe, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 22nd flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The fairings flew their for their 3rd and 8th times respectively. The launch was the second launch by SpaceX for Europe’s Galileo constellation. The European Commission was forced to award this multi-launch contract to SpaceX because Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket was four years behind schedule and not available when needed.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

92 SpaceX
38 China
11 Russia
10 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 107 to 60, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 92 to 75.

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FAA fines SpaceX $633K for acting without its permission

12:46 pm

The FAA to SpaceX
The FAA to SpaceX “Nice company you got here.
Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.”

The FAA today revealed that it wants to fine SpaceX a total of $633,009 for two different actions where the company did something without the agency’s express permission.

In May 2023, SpaceX submitted a request to revise its communications plan related to its license to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The proposed revisions included adding a new launch control room at Hangar X and removing the T-2 hour readiness poll from its procedures. On June 18, 2023, SpaceX used the unapproved launch control room for the PSN SATRIA mission and did not conduct the required T-2 hour poll. The FAA is proposing $350,000 in civil penalties ($175,000 for each alleged violation).

In July 2023, SpaceX submitted a request to revise its explosive site plan related to its license to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The proposed revision reflected a newly constructed rocket propellant farm. On July 28, 2023, SpaceX used the unapproved rocket propellant farm for the EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter mission. The FAA is proposing a $283,009 civil penalty.

To understand the absurdity and abuse of power going on here, one must look at the dates. » Read more

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Resilience splashes down safely, ending Polaris Dawn commercial manned orbital mission

12:48 am

SpaceX’s Resilience capsule has just splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, ending the five-day Polaris Dawn private manned orbital mission, commanded by billionaire and jet pilot Jared Isaacman.

As of posting the capsule is still in the water with divers and boats on the way.

This completes the first mission in Isaacman’s planned three mission Polaris program. It was a complete success, doing a great deal of medical research on the effects of high orbit radiation on the human body as well as the first private spacewalk using SpaceX’s first EVA spacesuits. For Isaacman’s next mission he has already proposed doing a Hubble repair mission. NASA has had mixed feelings about this idea, but after this success it will be interesting if that attitude changes.

I must comment that the coverage by SpaceX employees on this mission was somewhat annoying. For the first time, they spent a lot of time giggling and focusing on PR and how “cool” and “incredible” and “wonderful” everything was, from amusing new decals in the capsule to the spacewalk to Sarah Gillis’ violin performance.

All of this was as great as they kept saying, which is why they didn’t need to say it, over and over and over and over and over again. It would have been better if they had done what SpaceX has generally done on previous broadcasts and missions, focused on describing the technical aspects and then staying silent otherwise. Gushing like this is more like a NASA or Blue Origin broadcast, and does not do SpaceX credit.

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Sarah Gillis – Rey’s Theme

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The music is by John Williams. The lead violinist is space-walking Sarah Gillis, playing from the Resilience capsule in orbit right now.

Hat tip Gary.

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SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites

8:39 am

SpaceX last evening successfully placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

91 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 106 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 91 to 73.

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FAA attempts to justify its red tape

10:06 am

The FAA today responded to SpaceX’s harsh criticism of the licensing process that is delaying the next test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy, claiming the delays were entirely SpaceX’s fault for changing the flight profile of the mission, likely involving the landing of Superheavy at the launch tower rather than in the Gulf of Mexico.

The agency also claimed that this change meant that the “environmental impact” would cover a wider area, requiring imput from “other agencies.”

An FAA official reiteriated these claims at a conference yesterday, stating that the delay was “largely set by the choices that the company makes.”

All crap and utter rationalizations. The FAA has decided that any change of any kind in the launch operations will now require major review, including bringing in Fish & Wildlife, the Coast Guard, and others to have their say. This policy however has nothing to do with reality, as there is absolutely no additional threat to the environment by these changes. Nor is there any significant increase in safety risks by having Superheavy land at Boca Chica. Even if there were, the only ones qualified to determine that risk are engineers at SpaceX. The FAA is merely rubberstamping SpaceX’s conclusions, and taking its time doing so.

This is America today. Unless something changes soon, freedom is dead. To do anything new and challenging Americans will have to beg permission from bureaucrats in Washington, who know nothing but love to exert their power over everyone else. Under these circumstances, we shall see the end of a great and free nation.

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SpaceX launches AST SpaceMobile’s first five operational cellphone satellites

9:45 am

SpaceX this morning successfully launched the first five operational satellites in the planned constellation by the company AST SpaceMobile’s for providing cellphone service from orbiting satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

AST’s orbital cellphone capability is in direct competition with SpaceX’s own Starlink orbital cellphone service. By launching this competitor SpaceX demonstrates that it is not using its dominance in the launch industry to squelch competition.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

90 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 105 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 90 to 73.

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Two astronauts on commercial Polaris Dawn manned mission complete spacewalk

9:37 am

Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk
Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis this morning each successfully completed short spacewalks outside their Resilience capsule, exiting about halfway into space but floating free except for a umbilical tether.

It was very evident that the goal of both EVAs was to check out the engineering upgrades created by SpaceX to make this spacewalk possible. Both astronauts worked very carefully to vent the capsule’s atmosphere, open the hatch, exit, then close the hatch, though Isaacman (who exited first) opened the hatch and Gillis closed the hatch. All in all it took a little less then two hours to complete both spacewalks, with Isaacman outside for about ten minutes, and Gillis for a little less.

Though the actual EVAs were relatively unambitious, they were very comparable to the first government spacewalks by America’s Ed White and Russia’s Alexei Leonov in the 1960s. The engineering data that SpaceX obtained from this spacewalk will allow it to refine its spacesuits, its capsule, and make later commercial spacewalks more complex.

This new SpaceX capability is now something the company can market to other future customers. It not only gives this American private enterprise another skill, it makes SpaceX’s commercial capabilities more valuable.

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Polaris Dawn successfully reaches highest orbit for a human since Apollo

9:23 am

The view from 870 miles
The view from 870 miles. Click for video.

Polaris Dawn yesterday successfully climbed to an altitude of 870 miles yesterday, the farthest any human has been from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon, and the highest Earth orbit since Gemini 11 flew an apogee of 853 miles in 1966.

The four members of the Polaris Dawn mission, riding aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Resilience,” climbed into an elliptical orbit with a high point, or apogee, of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) on Tuesday (Sep. 10). They reached the record distance about 15 hours after lifting off at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) from Florida earlier in the day and circling the planet about eight times in an initial orbit of 118 by 746 miles (190 by 1,200 km).

They maintained this high orbit for about ten hours in order to gather radiation data for future exploration, and then dropped down to a lower orbit where the planned spacewalk will occur on September 12th.

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FAA delays launch license approval of next Starship/Superheavy test launch until late November

9:51 am


The White House to SpaceX: “Great business you got there! Really be
a shame if something happened to it!”

According to an update today on SpaceX’s Starship webpage, the FAA has told the company to not expect a launch license for its next Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch until late November.

We recently received a launch license date estimate of late November from the FAA, the government agency responsible for licensing Starship flight tests. This is a more than two-month delay to the previously communicated date of mid-September. This delay was not based on a new safety concern, but instead driven by superfluous environmental analysis. The four open environmental issues are illustrative of the difficulties launch companies face in the current regulatory environment for launch and reentry licensing.

This two month delay is actually a four month delay, since SpaceX had previously stated it was ready to launch in early August. » Read more

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Jared Isaacman’s private spacewalk manned mission launches on Falcon 9

8:39 am

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Resilience Dragon capsule carrying four passengers on Jared Isaacman’s mission to do the first entirely private spacewalk. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Resilience is flying its third flight. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The spacewalk will take place on September 12, 2024. In between the crew will spend the next two days preparing for that, while flying in an orbit with a apogee of 870 miles, the highest any person has flown from Earth since Apollo. That orbit will be lowered slightly for the spacewalk itself.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

89 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 104 to 57, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 89 to 72.

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Watch the launch of private manned Polaris Dawn

9:47 pm

The real rocket behind tonight's launch
The real rocket behind tonight’s launch

SpaceX tonight will attempt the launch of the private manned Polaris Dawn mission, led and paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman and carrying three other crew member (including two SpaceX employees).

I have embedded the live stream below, which has already begun. The launch is presently scheduled for 3:38 am (Eastern), with a four hour launch window.

The mission is planned as a five day mission, during which two astronauts will do a tethered spacewalk, though the entire crew will be in EVA spacesuits. This will be the first entirely private spacewalk, involving no government involvment at all. The mission will also attempt reach the highest orbit since the Apollo days, more than 870 miles.

As I wrote the day of the mission’s first launch attempt:

The mission’s real goal however has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with freedom and the American dream. This is an entirely private mission. The rocket is privately built. The capsule is privately built. The launchpad is privately built. The launch crew is privately employed. The astronauts are all private citizens, with one paying the way for the entire flight and two flying as employees of SpaceX to test the operation of its capsule in orbit.

No government money is involved. The government had little or no say on what will happen. The mission will illustrate in very stark terms what the American dream is all about, since it has been conceived, paid for, and created entirely by private citizens following their own dreams and goals.

Hail to freedom! May the bell of liberty always ring.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Democrats demand Elon Musk be censored and arrested simply for disagreeing with them

12:25 pm

Robert Reich
Robert Reich, labor secretary under Bill Clinton

They’re coming for you next: Based on the behavior of loyal Democrats in the past five years, no on should be surprised by this story. Several big name Democratic Party supporters have now called for the complete censorship and imprisonment of Elon Musk for the horrible crime of disagreeing with them and campaigning for their opposition.

First we have Robert Reich, that petty dictator who was once secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and teaches public policy at — you guessed it — the University of California in Berkeley. In an op-ed for the leftist British newspaper The Guardian, Reich claims Musk is “out of control” and for this crime he must be squelched. First he calls for a global boycott of Tesla and X but then tops this demand with some decidedly tyrannical desires:
» Read more

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