A SpaceX team is being brought in to overhaul FAA's air traffic control system

Just wait until Trump pardons Jeffrey Skilling, and puts him in charge of the Department of Energy Office of Electricity, to overhaul grid modernization, cybersecurity, and resilience running the national power grid, the Energy Information Administration, to provide power grid data and analysis, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to regulate interstate electricity transmission, wholesale power markets, and reliability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Skilling

> What specific expertise does SpaceX have in the air traffic control realm?

None?

> What was the bidding process like?

What bidding process? Remember when it's the "special WH employee" hiring his own company that's all fine and dandy

> Is there a problem statement beyond "it has some old bits"? What are the specific goals?

Every system can be improved, but I think the current issues with ATC in the US are not of a technical nature per se

ATC is much more than controllers watching planes on radar screens

Also remember this is a system that has been continuously evolving since WWII pretty much (and possibly before) and that one of the recent "breaking backwards compatibility" was NDBs being decommissioned in the US (bit by bit)

before coming to say that Musk is getting government contracts due to corruption/special access please read the full article

> get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system

> [media] will claim Elon’s team is getting special access, let me make clear that the @FAANews regularly gives tours of the command center to both media and companies

" Duffy said the team from SpaceX went to Virginia to “get a firsthand look at the current system, learn what air traffic controllers like and dislike about their current tools, and envision how we can make a new, better, modern and safer system.”"

I don't understand how anyone can be reasonably against this? They are not going to just overhaul everything overnight, they are going to upgrade the system based on ATC feedback.

Before all of the crashes recently with the FAA it has been having a large resource gap (for more than a decade) and that there was a plan in 2024 was on plan to hire thousands. [1][2] This got to the point that they were cutting minimum flying requirements (airlines losing takeoffs and landing slots) [3]. A big problem with even getting people to have a job at the ATC is that it doesn't really pay that well and the main source of hiring of people is former pilots especially when it can have long hours and shifts. I see this more as what happens when you stretch recommended staffing levels to the point where 90% of ATC towers are understaffed[4].

[1]https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/controller_staf... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-faa-cuts-minimum-flight-... [3]https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-nomin... [4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/over-90-percent-u-s-airport-tow...