I don't think Tory Bruno said anything wrong. He was merely talking about
historical averages. It got misinterpreted by the media, which tends to
happen when you have a big event about something the media don't cover all
that closely. (I was amused to reach the payload described as "Facebook's
satellite." Poor Zuck. Poor poor Zuck.)
Tory is a pretty savvy guy, so he will probably see that as a lesson
learned and be more careful next time. And who knows, he might turn out to
be right.
As for what needs to happen to get back to flight. Well, SpaceX will need a
launch license from the FAA for the next flight. So, that's one hurdle. How
big a challenge I don't know. Based on my reading of the SpaceShipTwo
accident documents, my sense is the FAA AST seems to lack the legal power
or will to halt things even when the parties involved are doing something
really stupid.
I think the much greater hurdle is convincing NASA, DOD and customers that
they have a handle on what happened, that it's not going to happen again,
and there aren't a half a dozen other problems lurking in the booster that
will pop up on the third, ninth or 11th mission after they start flying
again.
I'm heartened that SpaceX is seeking help from all quarters. However, I
remain concerned about the composition of the investigation board. Last
time they blew up a rocket, they had a board composed of 11 SpaceX
employees (including the chair) and a lone FAA official. The government rep
was the one person who did not sign the accident report that put all the
blame on the supplier.
The NASA Launch Services Program's investigation found other potential
causes, and there was a letter from Bolden and Gerstenmaier expressing
concerns about a range of SpaceX practices. That led to some restructuring
of the company's operations. FWIW, my own sources tell me that the June
2015 failure was more complicated than a single defective strut.
For whatever reasons, NASA and SpaceX have not released the results of its
accident investigations. There was a public report after the Antares
explosion. I'm not sure why there hasn't been one in this case. It's not
clear whether we will ever get a formal report released.
--
Douglas Messier
Mojave, CA
Email: 21stCenturyComm@xxxxxxxxx
Phone: (310) 739-0952
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Blog: www.parabolicarc.com
Twitter: @spacecom
