[raverbashing]

As much as I think the FAA response might be a bit unfair, I think the issue here is what is promised vs delivered

Even with a disposable booster you want it to follow a certain flight path and be discarded at a given area.

If you promised that it will land and it doesn't, even if it is inconsequential to the rest of the mission, well...

[krisoft]

> you want it to follow a certain flight path

It followed the promised flight path all the way to the drone ship and then tipped over.

I would understand the consternation if it left the keep out zone and landed in an entirely different area of the sea. But it sounds like that was not the case.

> even if it is inconsequential to the rest of the mission, well...

Could you finish your sentence please? The job of the FAA is to keep everyone safe. There is no indication that something unsafe happened here. What happened here is the reason why the recovery people are standing-by outside a declared safe zone and not chilling on the drone ship. (In other words this is the reason why the droneship is a drone ship.)

[bryanlarsen]

The FAA needs to know that if the same failure would have happened at a different point in the sequence, that all human lives would be safe.

So if Scott Manley was right and it was a landing leg strut failure, SpaceX could quickly report that and close the investigation. A landing leg strut failure would never threaten human lives so that's all the FCC cares about.

OTOH, if it was an engine failure leading to the rocket coming in hot (like others have speculated), it's possible that the same problem at a different point in the flight path could threaten lives. But SpaceX has redundancy in basically all systems for the "going up" portion of the flight so it could just say "yup, if that had happened at a different time the redundant systems would have had to take over".

During landing the center engine is a single point of failure. Going up they have 8 other engines and can get to space on just 8.

[Sakos]

I just don't understand the repeated takes that this is unfair. There was a failure, it should be investigated and a fix found. Once SpaceX has done that, they can continue launching rockets. I'm not sure where the problem is. This is what we expect from every plane crash too, or did I imagine the existence and purpose of the NTSB?

The same thing happened with the last explosion and the Falcon 9 was eventually allowed to fly again once it was determined there was no public safety issue: https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/spacexs-falcon-9-cl...

They were even allowed to fly again before SpaceX finished their investigation as soon as the safety question was answered.

This isn't a punishment.

[krisoft]

> There was a failure

There are failures which only cost the company money and there are failures which risks lives.

By all indications this is the first kind. It would be entirely different situation if the rocket thumbled out of control and hit the sea in the wrong spot. Then a grounding would be warranted. Here by all accounts they flown to the right spot but did not stick the landing.

> This is what we expect from every plane crash too, or did I imagine the existence and purpose of the NTSB?

We would not ground the whole fleet of an aircraft model if something adverse but expected happened to one of them.

[saberience]

It is kind of ridiculous though, every other rocket launched by any other company or country basically just blows up in the sea or the air.

Penalizing SpaceX for being the most successful company seems silly. Are they grounding other companies whose rockets cannot land at all?

[firesteelrain]

First, take a deep breath.

All other companies are investigated if this happens. It’s news because SpaceX launches so well and so often that it’s out of the norm.

[philwelch]

It is simply not true that “all other companies” are investigated if their rockets fail to make a successful landing on a ship at sea. This is because no other company in the world has ever successfully landed a rocket on a ship at sea.

[firesteelrain]

You are incorrect. Everyone is subject to the same rules.

See FAA Rule 450 Final: https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/space/additional_inf...

See 14 CFR Chapter III Subchapter C Part 417: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-III/subchapter...

[philwelch]

So you’re telling me every rocket launch from the US prior to 2015 led to an investigation, as well as every rocket launch not performed by SpaceX since then?

[raverbashing]

> There was a failure, it should be investigated and a fix found.

Yes but you don't need to delay other missions because of this specific failure

[firesteelrain]

How do we know this isn’t currently systemic?

Time to take a knee and pause then examine what went wrong.

[AnimalMuppet]

Yeah, what raverbashing said. Let's say it is systemic. Let's say that boosters that have flown more than 10 times have a high rate of collapse and explosion when they land on the barge. OK, so? Why does the FAA care? It's not like the explosion endangers aircraft - the airspace should be cleared because of the booster's descent anyway.

[firesteelrain]

I think FAA cares because it is under their purview and it did not follow their flightplan.

[raverbashing]

Systemic, possibly. Dangerous? Doesn't look like it

[firesteelrain]

FAA is doing their job. If the investigation turns up nothing then that’s fine. If they find something like SpaceX didn’t follow their quality processes then that’s time to pause before someone gets hurt.