SpaceX May Face $633,009 Penalty for Alleged FAA Safety Infractions
SpaceX is facing over $600,000 in fines for Federal Aviation Administration violations during two 2023 launches.
On September 17, the FAA said the agency is seeking $633,009 in civil penalties, accusing the private space firm of failing to meet multiple licensing requirements, but still proceeding with the launches.
The first launch cited by the FAA took place on June 18, 2023, when an Indonesian communications satellite called Satria was sent into orbit atop one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. The FAA alleges that, a month earlier, SpaceX submitted a request to revise its communications plan, which is linked to the company’s license to use the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for launches.
In the requested revision, SpaceX asked to add a new launch control room and to do away with the required readiness check two hours before launch. According to the FAA, when SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 using its new control room—without the readiness check—the agency had not yet approved either request. The FAA is requesting a $175,000 fine for each of the two violations.
The second launch, on July 28, 2023, involved a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, with the EchoStar JUPITER 3 Broadband Communications Satellite as its payload. According to the FAA, SpaceX used an unapproved fuel farm for the rocket’s propellant. For this violation, the FAA is asking for a $283,009 civil penalty.
“Safety drives everything we do at the FAA, including a legal responsibility for the safety oversight of companies with commercial space transportation licenses,” said FAA Chief Counsel Marc Nichols in a statement. “Failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences.”
To be clear, none of these potential fines have anything to do with Starship—the company’s in-development rocket that’s faced its own share of regulatory scrutiny and setbacks.
SpaceX has previously run afoul of FAA regulations. In February 2023, the agency called for a $175,000 fine, alleging SpaceX hadn’t submitted launch collision analysis trajectory data ahead of an August 2022 launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX was supposed to submit that information no later than a week ahead of launch.
A year before, the company was hit with a $18,475 fine after an employee was severely injured during a test of the Raptor V2 rocket engine. SpaceX is also facing a fine of almost $150,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency for allegedly illegally dumping pollutants into a Texas waterway without a permit.
The proposed penalties are essentially pocket change for SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who, despite cratering the value of the site formerly known as Twitter, is still worth an estimated $252 billion (at least, according to Forbes). The cost of a Falcon 9 launch is somewhere around $67 million, so the fines, if enforced, come out to just under half a percent of the overall cost of two launches—hardly a stinging punishment.
