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SpaceX has been required to purchase $63 million of liability coverage for its next launch, up from $13 million:
A SpaceX rocket scheduled to boost a commercial satellite into orbit from Florida before dawn on Tuesday carries five times as much liability coverage for prelaunch operations as launches in previous years. The higher limit, mandated by federal officials, reflects heightened U.S. concerns about the potential extent of damage to nearby government property in the event of an accident before blastoff. But at this point it isn't clear what specifically prompted imposition of higher liability coverage on Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
On a related note, SpaceX's most recently scheduled launch has been delayed:
Targeting Thursday, March 16 for @EchoStar XXIII launch; window opens at 1:35am EDT and weather is 90% favorable.
If you are in the area, and can hang around for another couple days, there's a Delta 4 launch scheduled for Friday shortly after sunset (2344 UTC).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:31PM (3 children)
Why would it cost hundreds of millions to set up a new launch site? There's plenty of launch sites around the world. There's one not too far from me here in Virginia, which ULA uses. There's others outside the US.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:43PM
Virginia is not as favorable as Florida. Due to the higher latitude, the rocket needs more fuel to reach orbit. Rockets use the earth's rotational speed (1670 km/h times cosine of latitude) to give a running start. In Wallops island, VA that initial speed is 1315 km/h. At Cape Canaveral it's 1468 km/h.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:45PM
For the Apollo pad, they had to build a new horizontal assembly facility, and a carrier that raises the Falcon 9 (NASA assembly was vertical). Plus the upgrades to the comms/control systems, fueling systems... Just about everything.
Similar changes will be required anywhere they go. Rockets are finicky beasts where pretty much everything is custom, even the exhaust trench...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Leebert on Thursday March 16 2017, @01:42AM
I'm puzzled by this as well. As some of you know, I work at NASA, and I've done a fair number of visits to Kennedy. I can't really think of anything anywhere near pad 39A that is actually *worth* $63M. It's more than 3 miles from the closest "expensive" buildings (the VAB and the buildings clustered around it), and if the rocket were heading in that direction, I'm sure the range safety people would blow it up well in advance. They already experienced the worse case ground scenario (a fully fueled F9 going "boom"), and according to some folks I talked to, there wasn't a whole lot of damage apart from the pad. I mean, it (literally) shook them up, but the damages were mostly limited to pictures falling off the wall, car alarms going off in the parking lot, sensitive instruments needing to be re-calibrated; that kind of thing. (The pad, on the other hand, did not look good. I'd post a picture, but there are "no photography" signs up around LC-40).
There's some small support buildings in the area, and a tourist gantry about a mile from the pad, but none of those seem even remotely expensive to replace. I can't imagine that the launch pad itself is that expensive.
What's weirder to me is that this is an FAA requirement, not a NASA or USAF requirement. So it's not clear to me that moving to another launch facility would offer relief.
I'm sure the FAA has their reasons, they're just not apparent to me.