Government Watchdog Says SpaceX Falcon 9s Are Prone To Cracks (engadget.com)

An anonymous reader shares an Engadget article: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets apparently have a serious issue that could delay the company's manned missions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Government Accountability Office investigated both Boeing and SpaceX -- the corporations that won NASA's space taxi contracts -- and found that Falcon 9's turbine blades suffer from persistent cracks. GAO's preliminary report says these turboblades' tendency to crack is a "major threat to rocket safety," since they pump fuel into Falcon 9's rocket engines. NASA's acting administrator Robert Lightfoot told the WSJ that government officials have known about the issue for months or even years. The agency even told SpaceX that the cracks are too much risk for manned flights. A spokesperson said SpaceX has "qualified [its] engines to be robust" to cracks, but it's now "modifying the design to avoid them altogether."

Comments

Re:This is not a serious issue. This is very minor

[Jzanu]

You mean, the launch reliability of a rocket isn't important? Not even for the Spacecom satellite? A business model based on re-using equipment that isn't fit for reuse is a failed model relying on luck to avoid disaster.