Twenty-four lawmakers on Friday expressed support for the FAA’s oversight of the early September Space Exploration Technology Corp. (SpaceX) anomaly at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
“We are pleased that FAA is maintaining a strong and prudent oversight role that appropriately draws upon private sector insight in ensuring a robust investigative process and safe return to flight for SpaceX,” the lawmakers said in a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, Air Force Secretary Deborah James and NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “We encourage FAA to continue to leverage its considerable investigative expertise to help SpaceX come to resolution swiftly and safely and we urge FAA to continue implementing its role in accordance with applicable federal law.”
A previous letter sent Sept. 29 from congressional advocates of SpaceX-rival United Launch Alliance (ULA) called for NASA and the Air Force to ensure that proper investigative engineering rigor is applied to the anomaly investigation. The 10 lawmakers also called for this to ensure that outcomes are sufficient to prevent NASA and military launch mishaps in the future. SpaceX is under contract from both the Air Force and NASA. The company is currently performing NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) missions to the International Space Station (ISS) but has yet to perform an Air Force mission.
SpaceX is suggesting a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the Falcon 9’s second stage liquid oxygen tank was the cause of the explosion during pre-flight testing. SpaceX spokesman John Taylor said Wednesday no additional information was available regarding the anomaly investigation. The company said the fault tree and data review process has exonerated any connection with a 2015 failure shortly after launch during a CRS mission. The accident investigation team looking into September’s anomaly is composed of SpaceX, the FAA, NASA, Air Force and industry experts (Defense Daily, Sept. 23).
Not only are ULA and SpaceX in a bitter competition for military launch supremacy but so are both companies’ Capitol Hill backers. ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA], said it bid for the Air Force’s Global Positioning System III-3 (GPS III-3) contract, likely giving the Air Force its first true competition for a military launch mission.