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SpaceXsent a letterto top congressional leaders on Wednesday deny allegations that it violated its launch licence on two disjoined occasions last year , which has resulted in regulators seeking $ 633,009 in penalty from the company .
alternatively , the party asserts that the inability of the Federal Aviation Administration ’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation ( AST ) to process “ relatively small-scale ” licence updates is further substantiation that the agency is ineffective to keep pace with the space industry ’s — but mainly SpaceX ’s — rapid growth .
The FAA announce that it was proposing the fines against SpaceX after the company allegedly failed to follow demand set out in its launching licence on two separate occasions in 2023 . In the first example , the FAA said that SpaceX executed a launch using a new control room and without transmit a launching readiness crown two hours before liftoff ; in the second instance , during a Falcon Heavy launch , the FAA alleges that the troupe used an unapproved rocket propellent farm to fuel the launch vehicle .
These changes require amendments to the company ’s launch licenses , which the FAA did not O.K. prior to the launch taking spot , the agency says . The combined amercement are the bombastic civil penalization yet levied by the agency against a commercial launch provider .
But SpaceX suppose in its letter that it had freestanding approval from a U.S. government chain refuge authority to utilise the new Eruca vesicaria sativa propellant farm , and that the other changes , like removing the T-2 hour set public opinion poll or transfer the fix of the launch control centre from one location at Kennedy Space Center to another , are unrelated to public rubber and thus not under the regulatory authority of AST .
When send specific doubtfulness related to SpaceX ’s response letter , an FAA representative direct TechCrunch to thetwo enforcementletters the agencyissued to the company , which place the specific FAA regulations that put forward that a launching operator must accompany the launch plan to the letter .
In answer to follow - up questions sent by TechCrunch , the representative said , “ The FAA does not annotate on alive enforcement exit . ”
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It is ill-defined why the FAA is only seeking the fine now , over a year after the alleged violations took blank space , but SpaceX pronounce in its letter that it ’s “ notable ” that they were declare in the thick of increased scrutiny from Congress over AST ’s licensing processes . That includes ameeting earlier this monthof the House Committee on Science , Space and Technology , which questioned industry leaders , include the FAA head , on the speed and burden of rule to commercial companies .
The FAA ’s associate administrator for commercial blank space transportation , Kelvin Coleman , told the committee that AST currently engage 158 the great unwashed , the largest ever headcount , after convey on 35 people in the last class alone . In the president ’s budget request for financial yr 2025 , the division is seek money for additional staffing , Coleman said .
This latest quarrel has only intensified SpaceX ’s increasingly public campaign against what it understand as ineffectual and untimely regulatory processes . The fellowship has taken to its blog to call out the “ superfluous ” regulatory delays carry up its next spaceship escape , while CEO Elon Musk uses his program on Xto put his perspective more plain : “ The rudimentary job is that humanity will forever be enclose to Earth unless there is radical reform at the FAA . ”
But regardless of timing , Billy Nolen , the former acting administrator of the FAA until 2023,pushed back againstMusk ’s affirmation that the regulative scrutiny was related to “ politically - motivated behavior . ”
As an agency , the FAA “ is about as apolitical as it gets , ” Nolen said .
