Four Tries, Four Failures, But SpaceX Undeterred on Starship Tests
Space Policy Online by Marcia Smith March 30, 2021
SpaceX suffered its fourth Starship test failure in a row today, but company founder and chief engineer Elon Musk remains undeterred, tweeting plans for the next test. He is expanding operations at his Starbase test facility in Boca Chica, TX and encouraging people to move there to work for SpaceX.
Over the course of the past four months, tests of Starship prototypes Serial Number 8 (SN8), SN9, SN10, and now SN11 have ended in what are whimsically called Rapid Unscheduled Disassemblies (RUDs) — explosions.
Today’s test of SN11 lifted off at 8:00 am Central Time (9:00 am Eastern) in heavy fog at Boca Chica. Typically these tests are later in the day, but this one was postponed from yesterday because an FAA inspector could not reach Boca Chica in time. According to a statement from the FAA, it is requiring the on-site presence of an inspector because SpaceX violated its launch license for SN8.
On March 12, the FAA revised the SpaceX Starship license to require an FAA safety inspector to be present at the Boca Chica site for every flight. This is the result of FAA’s continuing oversight of SpaceX to ensure compliance with federal regulations to protect public safety, including issues arising from the SN8 launch in December 2020. SpaceX must provide adequate notice of its launch schedule to allow for a FAA safety inspector to travel to Boca Chica. — FAA Statement, March 29, 2021
Under the 1984 Commercial Space Launch Act and its amendments, the Department of Transportation, of which FAA is part, facilitates, promotes and regulates the commercial space launch and reentry business. Its regulatory authority is intended primarily to protect the public from harm in the event of a launch or reentry accident.
SpaceX churns out these prototypes at a regular pace and views failures as learning experiences. Musk went right on to tweet about the next test, which will be SN15, a new version incorporating a number of improvements.
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