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According to information published on the Los Angeles County website, at least 132 employees at SpaceX’s Southern California headquarters have tested positive for coronavirus. This was the highest number of cases currently reported among private companies in the county.
The epidemic is essentially Omicron virus variantand also the private space company founded and led by Elon Musk is running a rapid series of rocket launches at sites in California and Florida.
About 6,000 employees at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, build and manufacture SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets and Crew Dragon capsules. Rockets are the dominant launch vehicle used by private companies and governments to put satellites into orbit, and capsules are NASA’s primary vehicle for transporting astronauts to the International Space Station. The company’s mission control room is also in Hawthorne, where engineers sit behind masked computer monitors during live video streams of launches.
The outbreak at the center previously reported by The Los Angeles times It comes at a busy time for the company, according to data released Sunday by the Los Angeles County department of public health.
SpaceX set a company record for fastest turnaround time between two missions on Sunday by launching a Turkish satellite into space from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, 18 hours after it launched 52 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base into orbit on Saturday. California. Another mission from Florida will send a cargo capsule full of supplies and research to the space station for NASA Tuesday morning, even as local weather looks unfavorable.
SpaceX did not submit a request for comment.
At an earlier stage of the coronavirus pandemic, SpaceX founder and CEO Mr. Musk opposed the restrictions in California aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. In May last year, Mr. Musk, who is also the CEO of electric car maker Tesla, disobeyed a public health order. continue production at the company’s Fremont plant despite county restrictions would prevent employees from working.
The day after Thanksgiving this year, Mr. Musk fueled fears of bankruptcy for SpaceX. in e-mails to employeesthe company called to overcome the engineering challenges associated with the development of the next-generation rocket Starship.
The pandemic has frequently interrupted spaceflight activities, delays cost NASA nearly $3 billionaccording to an internal report and Euro-Russian Mars mission delayed to 2022 in early 2020. However, SpaceX continued its activities throughout the pandemic. Continues to launch astronauts from American soil in May 2020.
Mr. Musk himself Test positive for virus in November 2020 and was prevented from participating in the launch of four astronauts from Kennedy Space Center into space for NASA.
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