SpaceX’s Air Force certification faces scrutiny from Pentagon auditor
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The inspector general for the Pentagon announced yesterday that it will be reviewing how exactly SpaceX’s rockets became certified to launch payloads for the US Air Force back in 2015, Bloomberg first reported. In a letter to Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air Force, the inspector general, Michael Roark, wants to know if the certification process complied with the Air Force’s guidelines for certifying new launch vehicles. The letter, however, does not say what prompted the audit.
The news comes nearly four years after SpaceX fought and won the ability to launch military satellites with its Falcon 9 rocket. Before this certification, the Air Force mostly relied on a sole company to launch its payloads into space: the United Launch…
