Jane Edwards
Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s space and missile systems center, has said his team did not find any information that would alter SpaceX’s certification status for its Falcon 9 rocket based on available data, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Thompson told Bloomberg the decision was based on an initial telemetry review associated with the Jan. 7 launch of a classified U.S. government payload as part of the Zuma mission that reportedly went missing.
He added that the Air Force will continue to assess data from all space launches.
The service branch certified SpaceX in 2015 to compete for military missions.
With the certification, SpaceX will be able to compete through fiscal 2019 for 11 launches that include three GPS III satellite missions.
