SpaceX Cleared to Launch Hera Asteroid Mission by US Agency
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with the Psyche spacecraft onboard is launched from Launch Complex 39A, Friday, Oct. 13, 2023, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will travel to a metal-rich asteroid by the same name orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter to study it’s composition. The spacecraft also carries the agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration, which will test laser communications beyond the Moon.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has cleared SpaceX to launch the EU Hera asteroid mission aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, despite an ongoing probe into a minor incident that occurred during the Crew-9 mission liftoff, an FAA spokesperson told Sputnik on Sunday. The FAA grounded SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to investigate a mishap that occurred on September 28 when the second-stage booster rocket landed outside its designated zone on its return to Earth. “The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to flight only for the planned Hera mission scheduled to launch on Oct. 7 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida … The FAA has determined that the absence of a second stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a reoccurrence of the mishap experienced with the Crew-9 mission,” the FAA said. The FAA gave no time line for when it is expected to authorize SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to return to regular operations. In August, the FAA briefly grounded SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket after the first-stage rocket of the spacecraft failed to land upright on a drone ship at sea. 
Beyond PoliticsCrew Dragon With Russian Cosmonaut Gorbunov Docks to ISS – Broadcast29 September, 22:34 GMTHera is a space mission of the European Space Agency whose objective is to probe the kinetic impact method to deflect a possible asteroid that may be heading toward Earth.
