SpaceX violated its launch license in Starship test, triggering FAA probe
theverge.com
theverge.com
Less inflammatory piece.
"Nor has the FAA provided specifics on what transpired other than offering a generic statement: “We will continue working with SpaceX to resolve outstanding safety issues before we approve the next test flight.”"
So unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't seem that the FAA has released any details on what was violated.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/whats-really-going-o...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/29/22256657/spacex-launch-vi...
Was it just an experiment with unpredictable result so they did not want to reveal that to FAA?
Do they think that they are at par with NASA and that any poor outcome can be waved as national experiment!
If I had to guess, I would say that it was an open ended experiment where they could not get approval for a launch so they avoided seeking approvals by playing it dumb and now they have the data that they wanted.
I would be wary of this company because they will experiment with human life believing that they are just another NASA but with even less regulatory boundaries.
If you want to get really good at something, you have to practice a lot. We need the FAA to get out of the way, or we will be stuck on this planet, with no backup for humanity in the event of an extinction event that affects the whole of Earth.
I mean, for all you know it's because they launched when there wasn't clear airspace, right?
I think it's safe to assume that the regulatory body that's openly struggling to keep up is the party at fault until shown otherwise.
Let's use some logic. If the investigation was specifically triggered by SN8, then it's likely related to altitude/trajectory or landing. It's probably not altitude/trajectory since that seems like such a brain-dead thing to clear before hand. So it's probably the explosion-landing.
Btw: this is SpaceX's current license for operations at Boca Chica: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
Obvious areas of conflict would be if SpaceX did not amend their license or notify the FAA to indicate that they believed they would likely not be able to safely land, or if SpaceX had stated that they they expected to be able to safely land. These would be areas that the FAA have a legitimate interest in.
Regulatory officials aren't idiots, especially with respect to high publicity subjects like SpaceX. If they KNOW that they are changing their own processes this year, they're not going to go trigger stupid shit over stuff that probably won't stick later, especially chasing against Elon. If they're bothering to do this, there's probably something worth looking into. Note that that's not the same thing as "SpaceX did something wrong".
Source or proof on that claim?
... especially when the rocket EXPLODED. This "the government needs to get out of the way of our billionaire spaceship overlords" mentality would be insane even if the launch was an unqualified success.
Now not dropping a huge exploding rocket on a major city is also a good argument.
That being said I have a problem with your comment. You are talking about that the rocket exploded as if it was of consequence. You even capitalise it. Why do you think it matters?
Safety of a test is about the process, not the outcome. You might have a bonkers unsafe test and come out lucky. That doesn't mean that the test was a good idea or safe.
Or you might have the worst of luck, a complete explosive failure, and still everyone remains safe because the processes were right.
I don't know if the FAA is right or wrong. I don't know if the processes of SpaceX were safe or unsafe, but I know one thing. From the fact that it "EXPLODED" but hasn't hurt anyone or caused any 3rd party property damage you can't draw any conclusions about the safety.
What exactly is your point here?
If this was some kind of engineering magazine, then you could expect in-depth details to the systems in place and mechanisms that failed. But this is a Reuters article, so I don't expect much technical details from it.
Regardless if anyone was harmed or not during an accident like this, standards should be enforced no matter what, if only to prevent the unlucky scenario in the future.
It remained under control for the entire flight, landed hard, buckled, and broke open. There was a big fireball from spilled propellant, and a few large pieces of debris (likely COPV's - composite-overwrapped pressure vessels containing compressed gasses) were thrown a few hundred meters or so.
A failure of this magnitude was anticipated by the preparations they had made (clearing a large area around the pad, plus safety notifications to keep aircraft and ships out of the area); nobody was endangered.
The vehicle had a flight termination system (self-destruct) which would have fired if it had gone significantly off course before it left the safety zone.
The site is on the Texas coast just north of the Mexican border; if it had EXPLODED in midair, perhaps some debris could have ended up in Mexico, but there is literally no way this could have endangered anything in any other US state.
It is just very unlikely that both the rocket will fail in such a way that you need the FTS and that the FTS itself will.
You mainly want it for scenarios where you cannot control the rocket at all anymore. In other cases it might be better to have it fall as a chunk into the sea.
I don't think the FAA cares about the explosion itself. They care about the safety of flights and the safety of people on the ground as far as flying things falling on them.
We really don't know what the issue was yet.
I'm sure the average person on earth doesn't care about the future of humanity after an extinction event.
So nobody was at risk at any point during the test.
Not to mention the whole test flight being setup so that even if everything went wrong no one could have possibly been hurt (eq. just enough fuel to reach inside the exclusion zone, self destruct system, etc.).
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Getting wiped out by people jet-setting around the planet on holiday is more likely. Planet-level extinction movies are a popular genre, so yes, we do care.
Things are a lot easier to make safe when launching towards water, but some countries don't have that luxury.
Long March 3B launched from Xichang, China on 1996-02-15, immediately veered off course and crashed into a village near the launch site.
Official death toll is 6 dead, 57 injured, though some eyewitnesses present at the launch believe the death toll must have been much higher.