Zuma Update: SpaceX Exonerated by USAF
SpaceX gets good news from the Air Force on the Zuma mission, Ars Technica
“A little more than two weeks have passed since the apparent loss of the highly classified Zuma mission. Since then, SpaceX has publicly and privately stated that its Falcon 9 rocket performed nominally throughout the flight–with both its first and second stages firing as anticipated. Now, the US Air Force seems to be backing the rocket company up. “Based on the data available, our team did not identify any information that would change SpaceX’s Falcon 9 certification status,” Lieutenant General John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, told Bloomberg News. This qualified conclusion came after a preliminary review of data from the Zuma launch. That’s according to Thompson, who said the Air Force will continue to review data from all launches.”
Yep yep yep yep, uh huh uh huh https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
This is good news, but I don’t that it’s certain the Air Force “would have access to definitive data about the Zuma accident”. US intelligence agencies do have a history of not sharing with other intelligence agencies, let alone the military.
Maybe the Air Force was the secret customer?
They should have said the mission had nothing to do with the USAF…
Don’t speculate too much. If they came close to informing you of the truth…well, the black helicopters could be orbiting over your house! I wonder if…oh, never mind!
But they’d have the clearance to look at SpaceX’s data.
And SpaceX would have a strong motive (given the apparently well-funded smear campaign being waged against it) to show it to any 3rd party they legally can.
USAF would have the expertise to evaluate it
Fortunately it seems that the smear campaign is running out of steam, they were petty with Zuma and that backfired on Northrop Grumman, and both USAF and NASA are doing what they can to push back against the smear campaign.
Let’s not overthink this people – if the guy in charge of buying launches for national security missions says that SpaceX is clear to launch DOD missions, lets NOT assume that its a ruse to cover something up or that they don’t really know because everything about Zuma is so secret – this means SpaceX is not the cause of the loss!