A US congress panel asked NASA earlier this month why it hasn't launched its own SpaceX investigation regarding June 28's Falcon 9 rocket failure as it did after Orbital ATK's Antares rocket blast last year.
"The accidents have raised questions about the US government's increasing reliance on commercial launch contracts and its oversight of accident investigations," Reuters reported.
Reportedly, SpaceX and Orbital ATK are leading their own investigations with oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In a letter dated August 4 addressed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith noted the space agency's different responses to both events "[raising] questions not only about the equity and fairness of NASA's process for initiating independent accident investigations, but also the fidelity of the investigations themselves."
The lawmaker described NASA's "hands off approach" to the SpaceX investigation as "perplexing" noting how the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company was also tapped for manned missions to the International Space Station.
Prior to Smith's letter, The Washington Post reported that 14 US lawmakers expressed "serious reservations" on how the matter was being handled. They are supposedly "concerned whether the investigation and engineering rigor [that] will be applied will be sufficient to prevent future mishaps."
Although there were no casualties from the SpaceX Falcon 9 failure, the lawmakers asked if the company's certification to fly military missions will be revoked. Last month, Franchise Herald reported that the US Air Force said they have no plans to decertify the company.
USAF Space and Missile Systems Center head Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves said they are monitoring the probe "extremely closely."
"We are not awaiting the end of the investigation; we are flight following the investigation from the time it happened to the time it ends," he said at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies-hosted event, as reported by NBC News.
"But we are not usurping the process that's in place where SpaceX leads it and the FAA oversees it," Greaves added.
Initial SpaceX investigation revealed that the cause of the Falcon 9 failure is a faulty strut which put too much pressure on a liquid oxygen tank causing it to explode.
