PARIS — SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell’s tour of Washington the week of March 16 – a luncheon speech, participation in the Satellite 2015 conference and testimony to a U.S. congressional panel – found her occasionally doing the work of the circus shovel brigade.When you work for a guy who shoots from the hip as often as SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk, it’s an unavoidable part of the job.Musk spent part of 2014 and early 2015 making extraordinary allegations that competitor United Launch Alliance, its shareholders Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and the U.S. Air Force and anyone else involved in certifying SpaceX’s Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket for government missions, were all in cahoots to keep SpaceX out of the game and feather their future employment and retirement nests.Musk went so far as to issue a near-libelous public accusation against a specific individual, formerly with the Air Force and now with a SpaceX competitor, who he said slow-rolled Falcon 9 certification to get his private-sector job.Since then, Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has dropped its lawsuit challenging the Air Force’s order of a large batch of ULA rockets and focused on the complicated task of certifying its rocket to carry U.S. government missions, a process now expected to be completed by mid-year.It was time for a peace offering. In her remarks at the Washington venues, Shotwell covered the Air Force with praise, saying its certification team was sparing no effort to complete the process and was working “shoulder to shoulder” with SpaceX.
If you are not cynical— The AF is happy to change, move into the future; SpaceX says let's put this behind us, blah blah.If you are moderately cynical— The "shoulder-to-shoulder" stuff is a cover. The AF deserves this rebuke because it is actively anti-competitive.If you are Musk— This development supports the revolving-door hypothesis. The AF was deliberately trying to protect ULA from embarrassment, lest SpaceX glide through certification.
Revised SpaceX, USAF Certification Plan To Focus on ‘Trust’The U.S. Air Force and SpaceX are modifying the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) signed two years ago to outline what has become the contentious process to certify the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket for use in launching national security payloads.The changes are needed to refocus the certification process on establishing top-level trust and confidence that the company can deliver a launch as planned. The current CRDA was “probably too focused on the government side on conducting detailed design reviews and instructing design changes … rather than focusing on the high-level question of do we trust this new entrant,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told Aviation Week during a March 25 interview.
This makes sense. I heard through a contact that the Aerospace Corp, at the USAF's bidding, has been going through the entirety of SpaceX's operations with a fine toothed comb for the last two years with no end in sight and it was becoming quite testy.
It seems like an active attempt too make SpaceX more expensive.
Quote from: Chalmer on 03/27/2015 06:09 amIt seems like an active attempt too make SpaceX more expensive.I think some form of "Hanlon's razor" applies, i.e.: Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.
Welch faulted SpaceX for assuming its experience launching other Falcon 9 rockets would suffice to be certified, and not expecting to have to resolve any issues at all.