The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is proposing a $175,000 civil penalty against Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX).
The FAA alleges that SpaceX failed to submit launch collision analysis trajectory data directly to the administration prior to the launch of the Starlink Group 4-27 mission on August 19, 2022.
“SpaceX is subject to a civil penalty of $262,666 for each violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations. After reviewing all of the information contained in our investigative file, we propose to assess a civil penalty of $175,000,” Taneesha D. Marshall, FAA’s acting assistant chief counsel for aviation litigation said in an enforcement letter, a part of which was posted on Twitter by space reporter Michael Sheetz.
Launch collision analysis trajectory data is used to assess the probability of the launch vehicle colliding with one of the thousands of tracked objects orbiting the Earth.
The FAA said that the spacecraft manufacturer was required to submit the data to the agency at least seven days prior to an attempted launch.
SpaceX conducted a total of 61 launches in 2022.
SpaceX has 30 days to respond to the agency’s enforcement letter.