SpaceX defied public safety rules at its most recent Starship launch over South Texas in December, the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday when it approved a license for SpaceX’s next major Starship test flight scheduled for the same day.
In a statement, an FAA spokesman said the agency determined late Monday that SpaceX “complies with all security and related federal regulations and is authorized to conduct Starship SN9 flight operations in accordance with its launch permit.”
SpaceX plans to fly the stainless steel test rocket to an altitude of about 10,000 meters, or 32,800 feet, with three methane-powered Raptor engines. After taking off from its launch pad at SpaceX’s rocket factory and launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, the 164-foot-high (50-meter) rocket will climb vertically and shut down its Raptor engines in sequence, then tilt to a horizontal position and fall back to the ground, using control valves and fins to control descent.
Finally, seconds before they reach the ground, the Raptor engines will re-ignite and rotate the missile vertically to attempt a propulsive landing on a pad next to the launch site on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The Tuesday test window opens at 9am CST and will run until 6:59 pm CST (10 am-7:59 pm EST; 1400-2359 GMT). SpaceX provides a live video stream of the SN9 test launch.
SpaceX is building and testing prototypes of its next-generation fully reusable Starship rocket, which the company says will be the most powerful launcher in history. The Starship will eventually fly six Raptor engines, each producing about half a million pounds of thrust, and will be stacked on the stop of an even bigger booster called the Super Heavy with about 28 Raptor engines.
The starship will eventually be designed to enter the atmosphere from orbit and perform accurate landings. The Super Heavy will land a few minutes after launch, as will the boosters on SpaceX’s operational Falcon rocket family.
The entire vehicle will be nearly 400 feet or about 120 meters long and carry more than 100 tons, or 220,000 pounds, of cargo to low Earth orbit, more than any rocket in the world. With life support systems and space refueling, spaceship missions could eventually transport humans to the Moon, Mars and other distant destinations.
Starship is central to the vision of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who founded the company with the mission of sending humans to Mars. The spaceship is also one of three vehicles competing for a NASA-reviewed lunar lander contract to transport astronauts to and from the lunar surface.
But first, SpaceX takes a quick approach to test the Starship system, first flying prototypes of the upper stage and transport segment into space from the massive rocket.
The flight profile for SN9 will be similar, but not identical, to SpaceX’s first high-altitude Starship test flight on December 9. On that flight, SpaceX said the Starship wanted to reach a maximum altitude of about 41,000 feet, or 12.5 kilometers, although the company has never publicly confirmed how high the rocket actually flew.
The December 9 test flight used SpaceX’s earlier Starship test article called Serial Number 8. The takeoff sequence and descent appeared to be going according to plan, but the rocket crashed into the landing pad at high speed after the Raptor engines lacked sufficient power generated. to brake for touchdown.
SpaceX said low pressure in a fuel collection tank, which carries propellants into the Raptor’s engine compartment for the landing fire, triggered the hard landing.
The missile was destroyed in a fireball, but SpaceX hailed the test flight as a success after gathering data and proving many of the Starship’s atmospheric flight characteristics.
A replay of the Starship SN8 test flight is posted below.
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Video Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
What SpaceX and federal regulators didn’t say in December was that SpaceX launched the rocket without FAA approval.
“Ahead of the Starship SN8 test launch in December 2020, SpaceX sought a waiver to exceed the maximum public risk allowed by federal security regulations,” an FAA spokesman said Tuesday. “After the FAA rejected the request, SpaceX continued the flight.”
The FAA is responsible for licensing the launch and re-entry of commercial spaces by all US companies. The agency’s role is to ensure that launch providers and returners comply with public safety rules, thus limiting the risk to the general population. The FAA also requires providers of starters and returners to take out liability insurance to cover possible damage to third-party or government property, ensuring that U.S. taxpayers are not on the hook to pay for property clearing or destruction.
It was not immediately clear whether SpaceX had been fined or otherwise for launching the SN8 test flight without FAA approval.
The FAA said it grounded SpaceX’s Starship program after the company launched the SN8 test flight without the safety clearance. SpaceX rolled out the SN9 test vehicle, the following in the company’s series-produced Starship prototypes, from the company’s assembly plant in Boca Chica to its seaside launch site for ground testing.
After a series of test fires in January, SpaceX planned to launch the SN9 vehicle last week. The FAA issued airspace restrictions for the South Texas launch site, but the agency did not give final approval for the launch, prompting Elon Musk to criticize federal regulators on Twitter.
“Unlike the aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA’s aerospace division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure,” Musk tweeted Jan. 28. “Their rules are for a handful of expendable launches a year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never go to Mars.”
The FAA said SpaceX should conduct an investigation into the SN8 incident.
“Any testing that could affect public safety at the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas was suspended until the investigation was completed and the FAA approved the company’s corrective actions to protect public safety,” said an FAA spokesman . “The corrective actions resulting from the SN8 incident are included in the SN9 launch license.”
Last week, SpaceX rolled out its next Starship prototype, SN10, to a second launch pad at Boca Chica to begin testing on the ground before conducting the company’s next test flight.
Jared Zambrano-Stout, a former FAA official and National Space Council chief of staff during the Trump administration, tweeted that he was “in shock” that SpaceX violated its launch permit. “And there don’t seem to be any consequences,” he added.
“If a licensee violates the terms of its launch license, they did so knowing that an uninvolved member of the public could have been injured or killed,” Zambrano-Stout wrote. “That is no exaggeration. They took a calculated risk with your life and property.
“Knowing that the FAA has a responsibility, assigned by Congress that granted them this responsibility in the first place, to enforce their licenses and the parameters of their licenses,” he added. “This is (because) any launch has the potential to harm the uninvolved public and taxpayers could be hooked for damages from the indemnification regime. In other words, the FAA doesn’t really care about harm to the licensee, they are in charge of protecting the public.
“Failure to enforce their launch licenses by the FAA will damage the long-term viability of the launch industry and damage their credibility with Congress,” Zambrano-Stout wrote. “It is possible that the industry will face significant regulatory burdens imposed by Congress to ensure safety.”
A SpaceX spokesperson did not respond to questions about the matter Tuesday morning.
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