SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn Falcon 9 rocket sits at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center as it prepares for another liftoff attempt at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on September 9, 2024.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Elon Musk said SpaceX will sue the Federal Aviation Administration for “regulatory overreach” after the agency planned to fine his defense contractor for problems with two launches last year.
Musk’s threat of litigation, in a post on social media platform X on Tuesday, it came after the FAA was announced will levy $633,000 in fines against SpaceX because the company allegedly failed to comply with various licensing and safety regulations during those launches.
The FAA said SpaceX used an “unapproved rocket farm” for the EchoStar XXIV Jupiter mission in July 2023. For its launch a month early from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida, SpaceX had modified plans communications and used a new and unapproved launch control room, the FAA said.
according to a “notice of proposed civil penalty“The FAA clearly informed SpaceX on June 16, 2023, two days before launch, that the agency would ‘not issue a modification’ to SpaceX’s license. SpaceX went ahead anyway.”
Musk and a SpaceX spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional information about the focus of the company’s complaint.
Musk also posted comments on X, calling the FAA’s latest proposed civil penalties “law.”
“NASA relies on @SpaceX for all astronaut transport to and from [International Space Station]but somehow [FAA] The leadership thinks they know best,” he wrote in a post to his nearly 200 million followers.
In another postsaid Musk, “I’m very confident that the discovery will show politically motivated misconduct by the FAA.”
The FAA did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
In a recent blog postSpaceX complained about “difficulties that launch companies face in the current regulatory environment”, specifically related to “launch and re-entry licensing”.
Last year, the FAA said it would fine the company $175,000 for failing to submit required data before the Falcon 9 launch in 2022. SpaceX had paid that fine in full by last October.
In August, the FAA had to scrap an approved environmental review of the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy because Musk’s company failed to disclose that it had received multiple enforcement actions from Texas and federal environmental authorities.
The FAA’s latest proposed civil penalties highlight the agency’s difficulties in getting the required information from SpaceX in time to review and authorize launches and re-entries.
As CNBC previously reported, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that SpaceX had repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act and failed to obtain proper permits to dispose of industrial wastewater at the Starbase facility. in Boca Chica, Texas.
In addition to taking on the FAA and environmental regulators, Musk clashed with the National Labor Relations Board. He filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the NLRB is unconstitutional in its structure and that its administrative procedures violate the concept of separation of powers.
