SpaceX has taken its dispute with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday (September 17), the FAA announced that it plans to SpaceX fined $630,000 for allegedly circumventing regulations in two launches last year. SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk responded to the news that same day, declaring in X (formerly Twitter) that the company intends to sue the FAA “for regulatory overreach.”
The company has now sent a letter to Congress challenging the proposed fine and criticizing the agency for acting too slowly.
The two missions cited by the FAA were PSN SATRIAan Indonesian communications satellite that was put into orbit over a Falcon 9 rocket on June 18, 2023, and EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter 3another telecommunications ship, which took off in a Heavy Falcon on July 28 of that year.
Both launches occurred on Florida’s Space Coast: PSN SATRIA from SpaceX’s pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter 3 from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), which is located nearby.
Related: SpaceX launches PSN SATRIA communications satellite for Indonesia, lands rocket at sea (video)
The FAA said SpaceX violated two regulations in the launch of PSN SATRIA: The company used a new launch control room and eliminated a readiness survey (typically conducted two hours before liftoff) without waiting for any of the modifications to be approved. The company had submitted a request to conduct those revisions, but that request had not been approved by the time of liftoff, according to the FAA.
For EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter 3, SpaceX used a newly built rocket fuel farm at KSC that had not yet been greenlit, the FAA said.
SpaceX extensively disputes these alleged violations in the new letter, which it sent to the chairman and ranking member of both the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
For nearly two years, SpaceX has expressed concerns about the FAA's inability to keep pace with the commercial spaceflight industry. It's clear that the Agency lacks the resources to review licensing materials in a timely manner, but it also focuses its limited resources on areas unrelated to… pic.twitter.com/2NJu00ZLiWSeptember 19, 2024
For example, the letter — which SpaceX also sent — published in X and emailed to reporters — says there is no requirement in launch regulations to conduct a readiness survey two hours before liftoff. “Importantly, SpaceX conducts a survey prior to fueling, later in the headcount, consistent with safe operations,” the company wrote.
The letter details the other two alleged violations and explains why SpaceX does not consider them violations. For example, the company noted that on August 20, 2023, the FAA issued a waiver allowing the use of the propellant pool prior to the launch of SpaceX's rocket. Crew-7 NASA astronaut mission that lifted off from KSC on August 26 of that year.
“The waiver issued by the FAA stated that granting it 'would not jeopardize public health and safety, the security of property, or any national security or foreign policy interest of the United States,'” SpaceX wrote.
“Since SpaceX's operations for the Echostar XXIV/Jupiter 3 launch and the Crew-7 launch were the same relative to the new RP-1 farm, it is unclear why the FAA made a positive safety determination for the Crew-7 launch but was unable to do the same for the Echostar XXIV/Jupiter 3 launch,” the company added. (RP-1 is the kerosene propellant used by the Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.)
Overall, SpaceX wrote, the company “strongly rejects the FAA's claim that it violated any regulations.”
The letter also criticizes the FAA more broadly, claiming the agency is holding back the U.S. launch industry.
“For more than a year, SpaceX has expressed concerns about the FAA's inability to keep pace with the commercial space industry and the needs of U.S. government agencies that rely on commercial space launch capability for national security and domestic priorities,” the document concludes, which is signed by David Harris, SpaceX's vice president of legal affairs.
Part of SpaceX's frustration stems from what it sees as over-regulation of Spaceshipthe new giant rocket the company is developing to help colonize the Moon and MarsSpaceX says it is ready to launch its fifth Starship test flight starting in early August, but the FAA says approval for liftoff is unlikely. until the end of November.
The agency has said it and its partners need more time to review potential environmental impacts, as well as modifications SpaceX made to Starship's configuration and mission profile after its fourth test flight, which It happened in June.
