The explosive crash of a SpaceX prototype Starship rocket this week has asked the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee an investigation into the incident. The news follows recent reports that SpaceX violated federal security regulations late last year.
Aan FAA spokesperson tell CNN through a statement that the investigation will identify ‘the cause’ of the ‘accident’”And explores possible opportunities to further improve security as the program evolves. ”
Accident is definitely a word to describe what happened this past Tuesday (February 2, 2021) in SpaceX’s test facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
The high test of SN9 the Starship prototype seems to be doing well performing a suborbital flight up to about 10 km (10 km), followed by an aerodynamic freedom fall back to the ground. But things soured during the landing flip maneuver, as ‘one of the [three] Raptor engines did not re-ignite and landed SN9 at high speed and experienced a RUD, ” according to and SpaceX.
With RUD, SpaceX means ‘fast, unplanned disassembly’. Good joke (and a term used for decades), but the FAA does not laugh, especially since it is now the second explosive accident of a Starship prototype, the first one happen on 11 December 2020.
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“The FAA’s highest priority in regulating commercial space transportation is to ensure that operations are safe, even if there is a deviation,” the FAA states statement. Consequently, the aviation regulator, which also oversees U.S. airspace, will oversee the investigation of [Tuesday’s] landing accident ”with the SpaceX prototype.
Musk fans will murmur, but that’s exactly the kind of thing the FAA is supposed to do. As she guidelines makes it clear that the FAA may become involved as a result of an accident or incident, or an accident at a launch site, or in the event of afails to complete a re-launch or re-enter as planned. The FAA may also become involved when the damage to the “payload, launch or re-vehicle, launch or re-import support facility … located at the launch or re-import site” exceeds $ 25,000.
Many boxes have been checked, so the FAA is definitely within its limits in this case.
And if I may say so, the aviation regulator can currently rely on SpaceX, given recent events. Like the edge reports, the altitude test done in December was not authorized. Prior to the SN8 test, SpaceX sought a waiver to exceed the maximum public risk permitted by federal security regulations, ‘ according to to Reuters, which the FAA subsequently denied. SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, went ahead with the launch anyway.
SpaceX wanted to launch SN9 last week but could not due to lack of FAA approval. By Tuesday, however, the FAA had decided to allow the launch, saying that according to Reuters, SpaceX had taken the necessary “corrective actions”, the details of which are unknown.
That said, an FAA statement released ahead of Tuesday’s SN9 launch offers some clues as to what happened to change the agency’s plan.
“The FAA required SpaceX to conduct an investigation into the incident, including a comprehensive review of the company’s safety culture, operational decision-making and discipline of the process,” the FAA spokesman said. “All tests that could affect public safety at the Boca Chica launch site have been suspended until the investigation is completed and the FAA approves the company’s corrective actions.”
The FAA said there would be “no further enforcement action on [the] SN8 case, ”and that the requested measures were included in the SN9 launch.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company states on its website that these flight tests “involve everything to improve our understanding and development of a fully reusable transport system designed to transport both crew and cargo on long-distance, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the moon. to turn and to Mars and beyond. ”
That these tests involve the semi-controlled daal of a hull prototype rocket partially filled with fuel, and now a few explosions that will make Michael Bay blush, does not seem like much to SpaceX. Sure, the immediate area around the Boca Chica test site is uninhabited, but residential and commercial areas are a few miles north in Port Isabel and South Padre Island. The FAA is obviously concerned.
In a January 28 tweet, Musk said the “FAA space division has a substantially broken regulatory structure.” The CEO of SpaceX is not entirely in line with his comments. The Department of Transportation, which oversees the FAA, last year developed new rules to modernize the way the FAA “regulates and licenses commercial space operations and to enable the emerging aviation industry to continue to innovate and grow. , while maintaining public safety, ”according to a statement. But as the Verge reports, these regulations have yet to be enforced.
In his tweet, Musk said that according to current rules, humanity will never reach Mars. It gives me a break. History would hardly take on an American aviation regulator if the fundamental obstacle for the Red Planet, but the world’s richest man is clearly frustrated because he can not do what he wants, whenever he wants. Well.