Author Topic: FAA proposes $633k SpaceX fines for Falcon license violations  (Read 32551 times)

Online steveleach

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Representative Kevin Kiley is calling out FAA Administrator Whitaker on his statements about SpaceX.

https://x.com/RepKiley/status/1839066996274516417

Seems like a weak letter to me.

It essentially says 'you lied because SpaceX denies your claims'. Excuse me? maybe it's SpaceX that's lying? (If I were Whitaker that's would be my response)

Edit: this is not like something that suddenly cropped up without warning, this is a very public issue and I can't imagine him going before Congress without knowing very well what he's talking about.
As I understand it, Whitaker was in for something completely different and was called in for this session at the last minute. He really may not have had much of a chance to prepare.

So Kiley is judging an unprepared verbal briefing against a prepared, written statement. In the absence of a reason to do otherwise, I would generally trust the latter a lot more than the former.

The letter to Whitaker seems to be basically saying "your briefing was not sufficient to convince us to drop this, please back it up with evidence", which seems reasonable in substance, even if not in tone.

I do think Kiley tweeting that Whitaker's statements were false was unnecessary and inflammatory, but then he's a politician. Hopefully Whitaker has his own heavyweight allies to shield him on the political side.

Also, asking the FAA Administrator if the FAA needs to be reformed!!?? Ouch!

Offline Brovane

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Representative Kevin Kiley is calling out FAA Administrator Whitaker on his statements about SpaceX.

https://x.com/RepKiley/status/1839066996274516417

Seems like a weak letter to me.

It essentially says 'you lied because SpaceX denies your claims'. Excuse me? maybe it's SpaceX that's lying? (If I were Whitaker that's would be my response)

Edit: this is not like something that suddenly cropped up without warning, this is a very public issue and I can't imagine him going before Congress without knowing very well what he's talking about.

Isn't it a fact that the propellant farm wasn't moved closer to public ally accessible areas and was actually moved further away?

The FAA is claiming that it is closer to something public. You think they're idiots?

I have not seen any maps and I have no clue, but most likely it is something where both sides of the argument can be true.

I think that FAA leadership might be mis-informed.  Wouldn't be the first time that leader of a government agency was mis-informed. 

"Look at that! If anybody ever said, "you'll be sitting in a spacecraft naked with a 134-pound backpack on your knees charging it", I'd have said "Aw, get serious". - John Young - Apollo-16

Offline RedLineTrain

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SpaceX president calls regulatory infractions 'nonsense,' seeks more Texas cooperation, funding [paywalled]

Well well well, what do we have here:

Quote
Calling regulators’ recent actions against the company “nonsense,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell updated lawmakers Tuesday on the company’s progress and urged them to continue their support.

Just goes to show that those who think this is Elon's personal vendetta against FAA have no idea what they're talking about.

Here's the video, starting at 28:00.

https://house.texas.gov/videos/20813

Offline envy887

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There are an infinite number of things that SpaceX didn't provide to FAA, but only the things required by regulation are relevant to this conversation.
But the FAA decides what is required by the regulation, and whether it was provided to their satisfaction. There's always room for interpretation in any regulations, and the only interpretation that counts is the FAA's.
That would not go over well in court. It's a change to the regulation, which agencies aren't allowed to do without following the official process.

Offline gtae07

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For another example of this, look at the decades-long saga of trying to get FAA approval for unleaded fuel for general aviation aircraft.  Or the current year+ backlog in Oklahoma City for aircrew who need special issuance medical certificates.
Oh, don't get me started on those two topics  >:( 


I'm a commercial-rated pilot, and in 25 years of dealing with the FAA, I can say from experience that something has gone seriously wrong with the agency over the past decade or so.  They used to be a lot more professional and competent than they've been in any of my recent dealings with them.  If commercial spaceflight regulation is stretching them too thin, maybe they should take a more hands-off approach until they can get their own house in order first.

I'm just a private pilot but I'm also in engineering at an aircraft OEM, and I agree 100%.  I think for a lot of reasons, the "old guard" is retiring earlier than expected (or, they made up a big chunk of the existing workforce and all retired in a short period) and the new folks don't have the experience and tempering that come with it.  They don't really know how things work in the real world and so fall back to very literal, very super-conservatively-literal interpretations of regulations; that attitude seems to have trickled down to every aspect of the FAA.  And I suspect more than a few may have come in with an attitude resembling "we're gonna enforce some rules against these rich folks/big corporations".

I'm also seeing some evidence for the various parts of the FAA not communicating... one hand not just not knowing, but basically working against what the other handing is doing.  Major disconnects between folks writing policy and those implementing it, in some cases. 

Unfortunately I don't think it's something that's going to be fixed easily.  With the "dual mandate" of safety and promoting civil aviation going away and going to "safety, only safety, and nothing but safety" I think it's practically inviting that one-way ratchet of ever increasing strictness, restriction, and control.


There are an infinite number of things that SpaceX didn't provide to FAA, but only the things required by regulation are relevant to this conversation.
But the FAA decides what is required by the regulation, and whether it was provided to their satisfaction. There's always room for interpretation in any regulations, and the only interpretation that counts is the FAA's.
That would not go over well in court. It's a change to the regulation, which agencies aren't allowed to do without following the official process.
Changing the regulations in 14 CFR takes an official process involving publishing the changes for public comment.  Changing Orders or guidance material (e.g. Advisory Circulars) does not.  The regulations are usually pretty broadly written and (ideally) specify an end goal of "here's what you must achieve".  The details of exactly how it's interpreted and how you show compliance to that requirement can and do change without the underlying regulation changing. 

Even then there's still a lot of room for interpretation; 91.13 and 91.119 are particular crowd-pleasers because "careless and reckless" and "congested area" are very pointedly not clearly defined and left open to interpretation; essentially they become whatever the FAA wants them to mean in a particular circumstance.  They're like the "disorderly conduct" of aviation, and the FAA will gig you on those if they can't find anything else.

I have also noticed in my interactions with any rulemaking or rule-enforcing organization... the more the issue is outside the realm of obvious, the more you have to squint to try and fit a situation into the "box" of the rule, and the more it gets into "well that's just silly" territory, the harder and more vigorously and more strictly literal said enforcement becomes.  This is, I think, where the greatest benefit from the Chevron reversal will come. 

Offline catdlr

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SpaceX president calls regulatory infractions 'nonsense,' seeks more Texas cooperation, funding [paywalled]

Well well well, what do we have here:

Quote
Calling regulators’ recent actions against the company “nonsense,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell updated lawmakers Tuesday on the company’s progress and urged them to continue their support.

Just goes to show that those who think this is Elon's personal vendetta against FAA have no idea what they're talking about.

Here's the video, starting at 28:00.

https://house.texas.gov/videos/20813

edited version:

https://twitter.com/xdNiBoR/status/1839554285744394314

Quote
Here's the full 16-minute edited video of
@Gwynne_Shotwell
 speaking to the Texas House of Representatives. I removed pauses and answers by other panel members. It contains some great information
It's Tony De La Rosa, ...I don't create this stuff, I just report it.

Offline cpushack

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I wonder if the FAA has the option like the FCC to vote to exempt a company from all the laws and typical rules? (as the FCC just did so to transfer the license of 200 radio stations to a foreign country)

Offline dondar

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Here is the current status of LC-40 from today's Dragon Launch.
what is the purpose of these photos? The FAA complain about tanks is about LC-39A.

P.S. General remark: I will keep repeating that  both launch centers (they overgrew "tower" long time ago) are governed by the gov agencies which have similar authority to FAA. FAA are way out of their authority there.

Small general reminder about what we are talking here:
relevant GAO report:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/d24105561.pdf
"COMMERCIAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION
FAA Should Improve Its Mishap Investigation Process"

"...Specifically, without clear criteria for determining when it should authorize
operators to lead investigations of their own mishaps, FAA cannot make
reliable, consistent determinations on which entity should lead those
investigations...."
Or in other words FAA has no idea what they want, how and why. Cheers.

Online steveleach

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"...Specifically, without clear criteria for determining when it should authorize
operators to lead investigations of their own mishaps, FAA cannot make
reliable, consistent determinations on which entity should lead those
investigations...."

Or in other words FAA has no idea what they want, how and why. Cheers.
While I suspect I'm in broad agreement with you on this, your paraphrasing has an awful lot of personal interpretation in it.

Offline SpaceManJoe

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The Master has spoken

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1842608270642675944
Quote
Doesn’t seem like SpaceX and ULA are being treated equally before the law

[zubenelgenubi: Don't undo a moderator's edit to your post.  I changed the tweet address from X to Twitter so that the tweet will be visible and embedded in your post, given the current configuration of the forum software.  (And, the tweet text is still visible via the quote for those members that view the forum where some or all "popular" social media are blocked. 🚫 )

Sorry if you (apparently) don't like providing the context to Musk's statement, but that's part of that civil discourse thing that we abide by here in this forum.]

I don't think I saw this one posted here either. Elon Musk says FAA Chief Mike Whitaker should resign [deleted]

[zubenelgenubi: Yes, Musk's tweet of September 25 HAS been posted elsewhere in this forum.  No need 👎to rehash old hash.]
« Last Edit: 10/08/2024 10:07 am by zubenelgenubi »

Offline zubenelgenubi

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Moderator (been thinking about the below for some time), and member:

Spaceflight potentates, policy wonks, media "influencers," and politicians out in the rough-and-tumble world are not required to discuss inside the bounds of civility or on-topic-ness.

But, as forum members inside this forum, we are.  By applying for and being accepted for membership, we choose to obey these strictures. :)

"Not a sermon, just a thought." (maybe TM)

TL;DR: Nobody is in trouble in this thread at this juncture.

Edit: And while I'm typing, someone immediately harshes my vibe. 😌 (See SpaceManJoe immediately above.)

« Last Edit: 10/08/2024 10:06 am by zubenelgenubi »
Support your local planetarium! (COVID-panic and forward: Now more than ever.) My current avatar is saying "i wants to go uppies!" Yes, there are God-given rights. Do you wish to gainsay the Declaration of Independence?

Offline dondar

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"...Specifically, without clear criteria for determining when it should authorize
operators to lead investigations of their own mishaps, FAA cannot make
reliable, consistent determinations on which entity should lead those
investigations...."

Or in other words FAA has no idea what they want, how and why. Cheers.
While I suspect I'm in broad agreement with you on this, your paraphrasing has an awful lot of personal interpretation in it.
there are 56 pages. read. it is interesting. (Seriously).
For example
they require full set of cause/mitigation report in mishap analysis, but they accept partial response mostly, and they hired "independent" (see Lockmart, Orbital etc. executives, and shared engineers)  corporation (it is called The Aerospace Corporation) as investigators/controllers. If you think it is all, no it isn't.  in the end they say (quite right and the only normal comment during all this....) that insurance incentives are sufficient motivation for rigorous launch discipline, and companies are the only proper candidates capable to produce mishap analysis of unique and very complex devices.
 And they still require (sometimes from some companies) full set of cause/mitigation mishap analysis. :D. Schizophrenia at it's best. And corruption, spiced by guild mentality.

Online steveleach

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"...Specifically, without clear criteria for determining when it should authorize
operators to lead investigations of their own mishaps, FAA cannot make
reliable, consistent determinations on which entity should lead those
investigations...."

Or in other words FAA has no idea what they want, how and why. Cheers.
While I suspect I'm in broad agreement with you on this, your paraphrasing has an awful lot of personal interpretation in it.
there are 56 pages. read. it is interesting. (Seriously).
For example
they require full set of cause/mitigation report in mishap analysis, but they accept partial response mostly, and they hired "independent" (see Lockmart, Orbital etc. executives, and shared engineers)  corporation (it is called The Aerospace Corporation) as investigators/controllers. If you think it is all, no it isn't.  in the end they say (quite right and the only normal comment during all this....) that insurance incentives are sufficient motivation for rigorous launch discipline, and companies are the only proper candidates capable to produce mishap analysis of unique and very complex devices.
 And they still require (sometimes from some companies) full set of cause/mitigation mishap analysis. :D. Schizophrenia at it's best. And corruption, spiced by guild mentality.
Again, a lot of that is your personal interpretation.

They are simply saying that the launch companies are best placed to do the investigations, and that they will limit their involvement to ensuring that those investigations are done, and reviewing the results.

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