, SpaceX most affected 
What is ULA?
United Launch Alliance, ULA, is a historic, storied, and America's longest-running space company with a great history of launching rockets 
. They are currently in the certification phase of their brand new rocket, called Vulcan. It is a direct competitor to SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.
What is certification?
Certification basically tells the US government that the rocket works. It requires 2 launches with an inert payload, basically a piece of concrete, into space. They had their first launch in January this year, it was perfect and had no issues.
ULA launched a fancy metal cube on this second launch with some science instruments, but nothing crazy. 
So, what's the problem?
Today, ULA's launch had a bit of an anomaly. 
The GEM63XL solid rocket motor had a little issue. Note, the SRB (solid rocket booster) looks like this on the side:
And here's what it looked like today
Whoops!
Here's another close up of the nozzle breaking off
Go back to the first video, and you can see just how much the rocket tilts over because of the change in thrust!
Ok and?
Well, when an anomaly occurs, typically the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) assesses to see if it warrants something called an investigation. During an investigation, the rocket can NOT launch and the FAA can take a while to determine if the rocket is safe or not.
There are 3 parts to determining if an investigation is required:
1. Did it kill anybody?
2. Did it deviate from the flight path?
3. Were there any safety issues undisclosed to the FAA?
According to this flight, despite the launch anomaly, the rocket was still able to make it to a perfect, bullseye orbit and the FAA said this:
Turns out, ULA know what they are doing, and Tory Bruno, the CEO, posted this:
Neat! So... what about SpaceX?
SpaceX has a rocket called Starship that they are testing as well, but they are being a bit more ambitious and are trying to catch the first stage booster on some chopsticks. It looks pretty epic, and it's very very ambitious to say the least. 
But, this 5th flight they are trying to launch is under investigation by the FAA because of some shenanigans that happened with the last flight as well as this catching maneuver. It's taking a while, and SpaceX fans are MAD. 
And SpaceX hasn't had a great year either, they had a booster landing failure, requiring an FAA investigation (only 2 days though lol), they had an upper stage blow up (another investigation), and they had ANOTHER upper-stage failure (another investigation).
Remember, all of these things deviate from the flight path and so require an investigation. SpaceX fans don't like it at all.
So, when seeing this launch have an anomaly, they freaked out when they saw the FAA didn't care.
Xeets:
Rocket man confused
Peepeeriders in shambles:
So I think they'll now be grounded by the FAA.
β Space Sudoer (@spacesudoer) October 4, 2024
Oh! Wait a minute, they're not SpaceX, they'll be fine πpic.twitter.com/2VqQ0efDQO
ULA Vulcan Launch Anomaly - FAA ?
β Stephen Lawrance (@StephenLawnet) October 4, 2024
I assume the FAA will pursue ULA with as much vigour and delay as they do SpaceX?
This was REALLY dangerous, the whole rocket could have exploded shortly after launch !!!
Will ULA be as open as SpaceX ? I doubt itβ¦
Iβm aware of precedural reasons for this, but itβs dumb a F9 landing burn failure on a droneship (far after mission ascent) warrants an investigation but this does not. This is goofy. This is like what happened with Challenger but by luck the gases didnβt pierce the tank. https://t.co/HHEGTL1h1y
β Robotbeatπ½ β (@Robotbeat) October 4, 2024
Yup. This is my opinion.
β Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 4, 2024
Itβs actually *worse* if the regulation/statute/whatever is being applied neutrally. In that scenario the issue is that the rule makes zero sense.
This issue with far greater propensity to harm is univestigated.
It is strange
β Space Enthusiast (@spce_enthusiast) October 4, 2024
The launch license Vulcan operates under requires a mishap investigation if a launch incident occurs
According to the FAA's definition, this includes the failure of a safety critical component; I would think that a SRB is exactly thathttps://t.co/0gT5JeyXHD pic.twitter.com/2xvUrT8mG9
The FAA has determined that no mishap investigation is required for the Vulcan launch anomaly.
β Dima Zeniuk (@DimaZeniuk) October 5, 2024
Investigations are only for SpaceX. pic.twitter.com/Oot0hlSEfv
Lots of cope in these replies, enjoy!!
Oh also enjoy ULA Vulcan waifu!
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Can anyone think of any important differences between this and Challenger?
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Apparently to some, nothing at all!
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a38925649/challenger-conspiracy-theories/
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Challenger had a woman on board
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Yeah must be collusion, no other reason why one gets investigated and the other not
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the real answer is that this was a DoD launch, a non-civilian thing, so it's not investigated by FAA even if it was bad, DoD would do it
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The FAA still investigates NASA and DoD launches if needed, it's just that NASA and DoD supersede the FAA and can say "frick you we're launching anyways" to the FAA. But even then, the FAA was like "no need to investigate"
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the FAA would only get involved it if threatened civilian airspace, like if it fell well out of course or something
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I mean I'm no expert in rocket appliances but a long standing company founded by two of the biggest US defense contractors who had a minor failure still resulting in a success is going to get less scrutiny than a car company catastrophically blowing up a bunch of potential space rockets
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Niqqa spacex is literally 90% of the rocket market
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Yep, I am a SpaceX fan but I understand the roles and reasons the FAA exists. But it seems that SpaceX fanboys want another Boeing situation where the FAA just lets SpaceX investigate itself, find nothing wrong, and then kill hundreds of people lol like Boeing did with the 737 Max
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could be but not sure why that matters, their approach is "move fast and break things" of course they have more of em cause they all blow up
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Rockets are stupid why do you want to go into the sky the earth is perfectly fine
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Tryna avoid the third impact b-word
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rockets are how you deliver nukes to the communists
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This whole post is bait
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If you mean mastur-bait to Vulcan Chan you'd be right!
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Shes 12
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SHE WAS A 1YEAR OLD ROCKET
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I need her missing one shoe. Half barefoot to represent the nozzle.
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The bulge says she would be blasting your bussy instead
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She's probably such a frickin dork too
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good write up
i didnt read it but you spent a lot of time on it and theres pictures and stuff so A+ for effort,
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Literally took 20 seconds to read.
You're not that busy sweaty.
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Thank you! I like pictures so I include them cuz who doesn't like seeing rockets launching!
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Mass simulator? How tf does that work? Is it heavy or not?
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Yes it's very heavy, it just simulates a payload and the vibrations and everything that the rocket would experience had it been carrying a real payload. Typically it's just a piece of concrete lol.
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This is an example that even somewhat intelligent people turn into internet drooling idiots when their "sacred thing" is smeared or "jeopardized"
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Snapshots:
booster landing failure:
ghostarchive.org
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upper stage blow up:
ghostarchive.org
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ANOTHER upper-stage failure:
ghostarchive.org
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pic.twitter.com/2VqQ0efDQO:
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October 4, 2024:
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October 4, 2024:
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https://t.co/HHEGTL1h1y:
ghostarchive.org
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October 4, 2024:
ghostarchive.org
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October 4, 2024:
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https://t.co/0gT5JeyXHD:
ghostarchive.org
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pic.twitter.com/2xvUrT8mG9:
ghostarchive.org
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October 4, 2024:
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pic.twitter.com/Oot0hlSEfv:
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October 5, 2024:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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