Great article. But don't bother reading the comments. The comments on Ars, especially for Eric Berger articles, are usually top notch. This one not so much.
"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.
My cynical guess: this was a "Elon just Tweeted something angry/cryptic, lots of people will be trying to figure out what's going on, so let's quickly write something about it" kind of article.
The company not being available to respond to those who question them makes for a mystery as to what their objectives were. What were the expected results? Did they expect an explosive landing?
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.
Why does SpaceX need permission to launch? Why is the FAA concerned about anything other than SpaceX having the clear airspace needed to develop new spacecraft?
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.
Seriously? It's a test flight of an enormous brand new rocket! It exploded! It doesn't matter what the flight plan is or what SpaceX claims is enough clear airspace. Launches of this sort endanger every flight in Texas and several surrounding states. It also endangers many civilians. While the danger can be monitored and controlled to acceptable levels, every single government in the world would want close oversight of this. It would be deeply irresponsible to let SpaceX proceed unhindered with an experimental rocket launch. As a US taxpayer with family in Texas I would be very pissed off if the FAA wasn't enforcing the terms of their test licenses.
... 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.
The article is devoid of engineering details. There is no way one can tell from this set of information if the FAA is right or wrong, or if SpaceX is right or wrong.
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.
I am not saying that SpaceX isn't allowed to do dangerous tests. I am saying that a test where a rocket might explode is the kind of thing that the FAA should 100% be involved in and it's ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
Nobody is saying FAA is corrupt or trying to hold innovation back. The problem with 737 MAX is that it's used to transport people. Starship is far from that, and any spat here is just about timeline of development.
> The article is devoid of engineering details. There is no way one can tell from this set of information if the FAA is right or wrong, or if SpaceX is right or wrong.
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.
SN8 (the previous test vehicle in this series) did not explode in midair. It launched, climbed slowly to about 10km altitude, and then descended to land.
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.
Sure - everything can fail. Even on older already working Rockets.
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.
My best guess is that SpaceX did last minute changes to the rocket, either hardware or software, deviating from the documents submitted to the FAA. This could explain why the FAA only reacts now and would make sense with what Musk said about the procedures not being able to cope with the pace of development they have.
what I have been hearing is that the violation is in regards to a flight termination system not activating. SN8 crashed due to the header tank not having the required pressure to relight the engine. They posted that info really quick, so.. did they know during descent, prior to the landing attempt that it didn't have pressure, or prior to landing-flip? If so, wouldn't a rocket hurtling towards the ground with no chance of landing properly require a flight termination? I can't validate this, just what i've heard from insiders, but the violation was confirmed to involve the "explosive landing" so that info seems to go that way. It would make sense that they delayed termination to see if the landing flip was successful, or to at least show it, since that is the main maneuver that makes starship such a different rocket.
You mean the surrounding brackish swamp or the declining village that Space X long bought out (mostly from friendly space flight fans who settled there after SpaceX started up to watch launches).
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.).
I don't think there's a recorded case of people going about their daily lives and getting struck dead by rocket or satellite debris. Eventually there'll be a first, but how many rockets are launched every year?
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.
Since the news article (both from Reuters and Verge) doesn't explain what the FAA was concerned about, how do you know if the FAA's objection is appropriate or not?
I mean, for all you know it's because they launched when there wasn't clear airspace, right?
We know the FAA's existing approval system is terrible, and they've developed a new streamlined set of launch approvals - development is complete but the rollout is delayed until later this year.
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.
I think it's safer to assume nothing. There's literally no information available. But if we were going to guess...
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.
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".
Hours after that article, the FAA said they had no concerns and let SN9 go ahead as planned. I just want you to see that your assumptions were not correct.
Less inflammatory piece.