FAA Clears SpaceX to Fly Starship Again After May Booster Failure

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given SpaceX the green light to resume Starship prototype flights after the company identified the probable root cause of the rocket system's booster stage failure during a flight in May. SpaceX announced over the weekend that the next Starship flight could happen as early as Thursday, July 16. It will be the second-ever launch of the third version (V3) of Starship. SpaceX also stated that this Starship will carry the first third-generation Starlink satellites to space. Previously, Starship had only carried dummy versions of the larger, more powerful internet satellites.

SpaceX completed its IPO and publicly listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange on June 12, making it one of the ten most valuable companies in the world and raising nearly $86 billion. The first test launch of the V3 Starship on May 22 was largely successful. The company's Super Heavy booster lifted the 407-foot rocket into space before the upper stage separated and deployed 20 satellite simulators along with two modified Starlinks that recorded footage of the Starship exterior. The new third-generation booster was supposed to return to Earth and perform a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico. But its engines didn't properly re-ignite, and it instead plummeted into the water.

The problem occurred at the moment of booster separation, according to SpaceX and the FAA. SpaceX said that "slight differences in engine startup on the ship" caused the booster to turn 90 degrees in the wrong direction. SpaceX has modified the engine startup sequence to allow the booster to "more reliably flip in the desired direction" and has made modifications to improve re-light reliability. The FAA stated that the most probable root causes were "heat effects on propulsion system components during the [rocket's] ascent and erroneous engine alarm system settings." SpaceX has made changes to Starship's engine alarm and abort systems to reduce the chance of a similar failure in the future.

This next Starship test flight will see the company launch the first of its V3 Starlink satellites to space, which are designed to increase the satellite network's capacity and user speeds. SpaceX plans to deploy 20 of these new satellites during the launch. They are designed to connect with the larger Starlink constellation "via high-capacity lasers" and then burn up in the atmosphere roughly 20 minutes after deployment, according to SpaceX. Six of them will be equipped with cameras to photograph the exterior of Starship. The V3 versions of both Starship and Starlink are crucial to SpaceX's future.