US government to fine SpaceX more than half a million over safety breaches

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A US government regulatory body has issued a proposal to fine Elon Musk's SpaceX more than half a million dollars for safety violations.

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The regulator is, unsurprisingly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the regulatory body that investigates and ultimately grants licenses for flight within US airspace. The FAA has been investigating SpaceX after every launch of its Starship launch vehicle, the world's largest and most powerful rocket.

However, Starship isn't the only SpaceX rocket in the FAA's sights, as the regulator is stringent with making sure the Elon Musk-led company, and any other space-fairing company, is following all the licensing requirements issued to them. 

The FAA states in its proposal SpaceX violated a licensing requirement in June 2023 when it launched one of its Falcon 9 rockets with the mission objective of delivering an Indonesian communications satellite called Satria to orbit. According to the FAA SpaceX submitted a request to revise its communications plan a month before the launch took place. Notably, the communications plan is linked to SpaceX receiving a launch license. 

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As for the violation, the FAA claims SpaceX requested in its communications plan revision a new control room and the abdication of the mandatory readiness check of the rocket two hours before a scheduled launch. The regulator claims when SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket in June 2023 it had not approved both of these requests, which the FAA believes amounts to two fines of $175,000 each ($350,000).

The other violation was from a Falcon Heavy launch that occurred in July, 2023. According to FAA, SpaceX used an unapproved fuel farm as the source of the rocket's propellant, which the FAA believes amounts to a $283,009 civil penalty.