Author Topic: U.S. Air Force overstepped bounds in SpaceX certification: report  (Read 43236 times)

Online catdlr

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U.S. Air Force overstepped bounds in SpaceX certification: report

Reuters By Andrea Shalal
3/26/2015

http://news.yahoo.com/u-air-force-overstepped-bounds-spacex-certification-report-200231213--finance.html
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Offline Burninate

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http://newsdaily.com/2015/03/u-s-air-force-overstepped-bounds-in-spacex-certification-report/[/font][/size]

Archived for posterity because syndicated news of this sort often results in dead links relatively quickly.

They actually tried to change the structure of SpaceX's org chart?




[Mod Edit: Post links to articles instead of the full article, otherwise it's a copyright issue]
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 07:43 am by Ford Mustang »

Offline Burninate

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Complementary to this story:
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.

Offline Helodriver

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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.

Offline enzo

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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.

Offline meekGee

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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.

Anyone who thought that the AF acted as a proper "customer" for EELVs, that there were clear lines drawn, and that each party acted in its own best interest in a commercial-like manner is higher on kool-aid than any of the SpaceX fans ever was.

The formation of ULA as a merger between the two entities that were supposed to compete to keep pricing under control was just the starting point.  It is really time for this story to end, and I'm glad this is finally getting outed.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 01:24 am by meekGee »
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Offline Aerospace Dilettante

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Quote from: 'AvWeek'
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.

http://aviationweek.com/defense/revised-spacex-usaf-certification-plan-focus-trust

They just need to form a big circle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya.   ???

Offline Kabloona

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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.

Nightmare scenario. A consultant with financial incentive to make the process as long as possible and to find as many "issues" as possible. The thought of being an engineer at SpaceX and having Aerospace in one's shorts for two years makes me shudder. No wonder it turned into a fiasco.

But the still unsolved mystery is how the Air Force could continue to pretend as late as December that SpaceX was close to being certified, when it's now clear they were nowhere near the finish line. Maybe SMC didn't want to tell the Pentagon how bad things actually were.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 03:01 am by Kabloona »

Offline docmordrid

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Two words: someone lied.

I've seen this in other sectors. SSDD.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 03:02 am by docmordrid »
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Offline Ludus

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So with the Atlas out because of Russian engines (ditto Orbital even without the explosion), ULA saying they are retiring Delta and the new rocket will be ready NET 2022, the AirForce has such a vast array of choices that it can afford to act like this?

What if Elon tweets that he just decided the AF was wasting too much of his time and SpaceX was withdrawing it's bid to launch their satellites for a couple years until they get their act together. At that time he will issue them a TOS statement specifying exactly what options they have to "certify" SpaceX, click agree to proceed or start shopping for those trampolines that the Russian recommended.


Offline butters

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I think the Air Force is finally starting to figure out that they need SpaceX at least as much as SpaceX needs a slice of the shrinking U.S. military satellite market. I suspect that USAF would have come to their senses much sooner had they not been so accustomed to deferring to private consulting firms.

Aerospace Corp and the like are the real parasites in the system. Sure, we could blame the banks for the subprime housing bubble, but on the other hand they were just playing the game that the credit rating agencies devised in order to create the perception of independent oversight. But the conflicts of interest are baked right into the compensation mechanism. In the same way, defense contractors behave the way they do because of the games they are made to play in order to please the professional gatekeepers of our misguided technocracy.

Insurance is the better model for risk management, because the insurer has to put their money where their mouth is while competing against other insurers. They operate under a much more appropriate incentive structure. In the same way, the subprime bubble collapsed when the cost of buying default insurance on mortgage bonds came completely unglued from official credit ratings.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 04:12 am by butters »

Offline rokan2003

What I find amazing about SpaceX, and all of Musk's ventures really, is its ability to bend markets and in this case even an enormous institution to his will. This is a staggering development: they've effectively managed to get the airforce to change their certification process. (off topic, but he's doing the same with Tesla in getting dealership legislation changed in states, and of course Paypal changed banking).

Offline deruch

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I'd bet that the outside review was part of the lawsuit settlement between SpaceX and the AF.
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Offline Chalmer

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Wow. This is much worse than i had thought, and I didnt have that high regards for the AF cert. process too start with.

It seems like an active attempt too make SpaceX more expensive. AF have been lying publicly through the whole process. Seems to me they have their own agenda, and that is to keep space launch prohibitively expensive so they can remain the most important actor.

I glad that SpaceX didnt just roll over and accept this, but have fought back.

 

Offline sdsds

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It 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.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 06:27 am by sdsds »
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Offline docmordrid

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It 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.

I disagree. This is too systematic, and having seen the same thing in other public sectors for decades I'm not thinking stupidity fits. In my experience there are better, non-benign terms that do fit.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 07:01 am by docmordrid »
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Offline Mader Levap

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It 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.
Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.  ;)
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...and if you have failure, tell it anyway.

Offline Jim

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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.

What do you think certification is?

The org chart issue is that they have no stated system engineering function.
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 10:46 am by Jim »

Offline CT Space Guy

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The one thing I was hoping to see from the settlement of the lawsuit between SpaceX and the AF was, a full easy to understand public accounting of what each launch cost.

This should go back at least several years, and account for all monies given to ULA. All money from AF, NASA and NRO. Then see how it splits up very publicly.

Did the AF end up supporting NASA launches, and keeping the Delta II cost’s low? And if not then the EELV launches would look more expensive.

Either way it should be a very public accounting of launch costs. Yes I know most of the information is public, but I think it is too convoluted and I think SpaceX should have pushed for that.

Online woods170

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http://aviationweek.com/defense/revised-spacex-usaf-certification-plan-focus-trust
Quote from: 'AvWeek'
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.

Emphasis mine.
This is where USAF screwed up. Trying to change SpaceX' organizational structure and trying to force design changes on Falcon 9 are just symptoms of the higher-level problem. Fortunately, the review has uncovered this and corrective actions are being implemented.

The fact that USAF and SpaceX had different interpretations of the CRDA is a classic mistake. There is no excuse for  neither SpaceX nor USAF to let that happen. Yet it happened anyway.


http://news.yahoo.com/u-air-force-overstepped-bounds-spacex-certification-report-200231213--finance.html
Quote from: Andrea Shalal
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.

And this is where SpaceX screwed up.

So, what can we make of all this? Well, both parties screwed up, courtesy of major cultural differences between SpaceX and USAF and a badly composed CRDA.
Both parties will have to change to succesfully complete the certification process. Judging from comments, earlier this week, from several actors involved (Gwynne Shotwell, USAF general Hyten and air force secretary Deborah Lee James), those changes are being implemented right now.

IMO SpaceX dropping the lawsuit against USAF over the block-buy is a trade-off to USAF agreeing to fundamentally changing the scope of the CRDA (redirecting focus from technical details to higher-level trust).
« Last Edit: 03/27/2015 11:26 am by woods170 »

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