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It seems that the FAA office supervises

    These actions followed the predetermined protocols. However, it emphasized the small but non-zero risk that rocket waste fell to the earth after a launch failure. “The potential for a bad day Downrange has just become real,” Lori Garver, a former deputy manager of NASA, posted on X.

    Public safety is not a one -mandate of the Commercial Space Office of the FAA. It is also chartered to encourage, facilitate and promote “commercial space elections and reentries by encouraging the private sector”, “said a FAA website. There is a balance to strike.

    Legal people insisted on the FAA last year to speed up the launch approvals, especially since Starship is central to strategic national objectives. NASA has contracts with SpaceX to develop a variant of spaceship to land astronauts on the moon, and the unparalleled capacity of Starship to deliver more than 100 tonnes to a low earthbit is attractive for the Pentagon.

    While Musk criticized the FAA in 2024, SpaceX officials took a different tone in 2023 and called for the congress to increase the budget for the FAA of commercial space travel and for the regulator to double the staff of the space departure . This change, according to SpaceX officials, would enable the FAA to assess and approve a fast-growing number of commercial launch and reintry applications.

    In September, SpaceX published a statement that the former manager of the FAA, Michael Whitaker, accused of making inaccurate statements about SpaceX to a conference subcommité. In another post on X, Musk immediately called for the resignation of Whitaker.

    That is exactly what happened. Whitaker, who took over the Topbaan of the FAA in 2023 under the Biden administration, announced in December that he would resign on the first day. Since the establishment of the Agency in 1958, three FAA managers have resigned in the same way when a new government takes over power, but the office has been largely immune to presidential politics in recent decades. Since 1993, FAA managers have remained in their duties during all presidential transitions.