WASHINGTON — A recent series of anomalies by SpaceX prompted a warning by a NASA safety panel to stay focused on safety for crewed flights.   At an

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies

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2024-11-01 12:30:03

WASHINGTON — A recent series of anomalies by SpaceX prompted a warning by a NASA safety panel to stay focused on safety for crewed flights.

At an Oct. 31 meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), Kent Rominger, a former astronaut who serves on the committee, went through a list of “recent issues” with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft that he said served as a reminder to remain vigilant as the company increases its pace of missions.

The issues he mentioned included the July Falcon 9 launch failure when the second stage failed to perform a second burn, grounding the rocket for about two weeks. Another upper stage engine anomaly on the Falcon 9 launch of the Crew-9 mission Sept. 28 during a deorbit burn also grounded the vehicle, with the exception of one mission, for two weeks. Falcon 9 launches were also briefly halted in August when a Falcon 9 booster was lost attempting a droneship landing.

“When you look at these recent incidents over the last handful of weeks, it does lead one say that it’s apparent that operating safely requires significant attention to detail as hardware ages and the pace of operations increases,” he concluded. “Both NASA and SpaceX need to maintain focus on safe Crew Dragon operations and not take any ‘normal’ operations for granted.”

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