The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed 63 procedures on SpaceX that the company must implement before conducting another Starship launch. On the first launch, in April of this year, things went wrong launcher And the self-destruct mechanism.
the The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigated SpaceX The spacecraft is launched after that partially aborted launch. The results of this study have only been partially disclosed; The FAA says there were “multiple root causes” for the initial launch failure. This is how the error occurred when launching from launcherThe enormous force of the super-heavy booster ignited a fire around the launch pad and scattered debris from the launch pad hundreds of meters away. In addition, there was a delay between the time the self-destruct command was issued and the time the spacecraft actually exploded.
Mandatory measures include redesigning the hardware to prevent leaks and fires and redesigning the launch pad to make it more robust. SpaceX must also “evaluate” the design process as well as analyze and test safety-critical systems. The company will not be able to obtain a new license for a subsequent launch unless SpaceX implements these procedures. Until then, SpaceX will not be allowed to carry out spacecraft launches.
In a comment Refers to SpaceX Certain measures have already been taken to address the mentioned problems in subsequent launches. It is not clear whether SpaceX has addressed all of the FAA’s concerns about this. It’s also not clear when SpaceX expects to be able to make another launch attempt. Starship is SpaceX’s new generation rocket, which should be fully reusable.
Testing flight hardware development in the aviation environment is what enables our teams to quickly learn and implement design changes and hardware upgrades to improve the likelihood of future success. We’ve learned a tremendous amount about vehicle and ground systems during… pic.twitter.com/kzMEBHwWyz
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 8, 2023
