Engineers investigate another malfunction on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
The FAA care about safety. If you have anything falling back to Earth you have to prove it is safe. That usually means you have to do some analysis to show your chance of killing someone on the ground is less than 1 in 10,000 (that's the European level, I believe the US level might be tougher).
An easy way to meet this is to land in the middle of the ocean, since there's a lot of space and very few people around, hence SpaceX target the Pacific for the falling second stage.
As part of this you need to identify your expected landing zone, which is then used to warn sailors and aircraft about the risk. But also this is not really enforced - nobody goes out there to check the zone is empty before the launch is authorised, like they do around the launch pad.
But you also need to account for failures in your 1 in 10,000 analysis. So as part of it you look at the probability of something failing and of pushing you off track, and then the risk of killing someone if that happens. Again, this is easy if you are targeting the ocean, since being even a thousand miles off still brings you down in empty water.
So this scenario, where the upper stage fails and comes down in the wrong place, is almost certainly already included in SpaceX’s planning and licensing.
Where the FAA might have questions is whether the probability of failures is correct, or if something has changed in manufacturing to make them more likely.
For SpaceX, obviously, a dodgy second stage is a bigger problem. They need the stage to be reliable for upcoming interplanetary flights and others going beyong LEO. And they'll want to understand what caused it in order to make sure it couldn't happen earlier (which in this case could have been while astronauts were still attached).
So there's a good reason SpaceX are investigating and already announced a pause in flight, and probably a good reason too why the FAA is keeping quiet so far. Behind the scenes I'm sure they're already in contact about the matter.
[0] https://spacenews.com/new-upper-stage-disposal-rules-help-no...
[1] https://outerspaceinstitute.ca/osisite/wp-content/uploads/OS... ("Uncontrolled reentries are currently used for 35% of U.S. missions (62% if we exclude SpaceX)")
(As a tangential curiosity, Ariane 5 (and perhaps some other LH2/LOX upper stages) lacks any capability [2] to do this, even if they wanted to: because those engines are designed in a way that can only be ignited once. To do a controlled re-entry into the atmosphere, it's a prerequisite that you have a rocket that can be turned on and off at least twice).
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00945...
It's easier generally to meet the threshold with a controlled reentry because you can choose more or less where it re-enters.
I don't know that you can actually do that and I'm not sure there's any federal law which actually requires you to attempt this.
> your chance of killing someone on the ground is less than 1 in 10,000
That's merely a guideline and it's only meant to apply to "large debris" falling from orbit.
> in SpaceX’s planning and licensing.
The FAA has to give you a license unless it can find a defensible reason why you should not have one. They're also allowed to give experimental licenses and they're allowed to waive just about any requirement they feel like. The FAA is not there to give you permission they are there to make sure you aren't doing anything dangerous.
This sounds tautological, but if you ever end up in court, you will find, it absolutely isn't. The difference matters quite a bit here. You have a _right_ to access space. The FAA does not have a right to control it.
If they can't prove what your doing is dangerous they're not actually entitled to stop you. About the only thing you absolutely _can't_ do is advertise in space or send payloads meant for advertising. Everything else is just a waiver request. Which will almost certainly be granted.
> probably a good reason too why the FAA is keeping quiet so far.
It's not their show. Neither USC or any CFR gives them this kind of authority.
How'd people decide to accept 1 out of 10,000 killing someone? Maybe the metric should be deaths per year since the number will only go up over time. To be fair, I have no idea what it is right now.
"The FAA is aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX NASA Crew-9 mission that launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on September 28. The incident involved the Falcon 9 second stage landing outside of the designated hazard area. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation"
The lunar and interplanetary flights will be on Starship not Falcon.
Please, for the love of humanity, do your part and donate as much money as you can to Elon Musk so he can save us all.