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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the liability-only dept.

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).


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:57PM (3 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:57PM (#479601)

    Forgot to ask: How do they reconcile the usual launch No-Go zones with being less than 2km from the Mexican border?

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:41PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:41PM (#479611) Journal

    Forgot to ask: How do they reconcile the usual launch No-Go zones with being less than 2km from the Mexican border?

    That would be another no-go zone. They would also be launching towards the Gulf of Mexico. If the rocket drifts more than 2 km off course, they'll abort the launch, which would destroy the rocket in mid air, though these days, the payload could be saved with a launch abort system (LAS). At that point, the harm is from debris and the LAS payload dropping on whatever is underneath.

    There are some spectacularly bad failure modes such as tipping over early in the launch and veering into a populated area before the rocket can be aborted, but the US hasn't had a failure that bad on any orbital rocket in a long while. Blowing up on or just above the launch pad is a more likely failure (which has happened twice in the US in the past decade).

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:59PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @11:59PM (#479616)

      > That would be another no-go zone.

      That's kind of my question though. I'm pretty sure the exclusion zones around the Cape are somewhere between 3km and tens of km.
      I don't see Mister Wall negotiating with the Mexicans to forbid them from their own airspace.

      It's also well within range of 0.50 cal... Wouldn't want to piss off the cartels.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @01:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @01:47PM (#479774)

      One problem is if the rocket tips over and blows, there is a chance that it would blow a hole open in The Wall, and the hoards of illegal "bad dudes" would come flooding through.

      Little known fact: The Great Wall of China wasn't a military defensive construction, it was to keep out all the illegal Mongol aliens from taking all the rural peasant Chinese jobs.