SpaceX cleared to launch Starship test flight after two explosive failures

Federal regulators have given SpaceX the green light for another test flight of Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever constructed, after two explosive mishaps earlier this year rained debris near islands in the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, said Thursday that SpaceX can move forward with its next launch attempt while an investigation into the vehicle’s most recent failure, during which it exploded near the Bahamas, is ongoing, the agency confirmed to CNN. Regulators decided to allow the company to move forward with another test mission, referred to as Flight 9, after determining that SpaceX has met “all of the rigorous safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.” The update from the FAA comes after the agency issued a launch license on May 15 for the upcoming test flight. That license approval was a significant milestone and win for SpaceX because it marked the final step in a long-awaited approval process. The company had for years sought to expand the maximum number of launches it can carry out annually from its facilities in South Texas — home to Starship manufacturing and operations facilities. “The FAA approved license modifications for the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission,” the FAA said in a May 15 statement. “The approval includes final action allowing SpaceX to increase Starship operations from five up to 25 per year at Boca Chica, Texas.” At the time, the FAA also noted that it would expand the size of the hazard zones — or keep-out areas for aircraft — that will be locked down during the next Starship flight. The agency said it made the change in response to the two prior mishaps, Flight 7 in January and Flight 8 in March, which signaled “a greater probability of failure” in the FAA’s calculations. SpaceX for the first time also intends to attempt to reuse a Super Heavy rocket booster on Flight 9. Super Heavy is the largest piece of the Starship launch system and consists of a 232-foot (71-meter) steel cylinder, fuel tanks, and all 33 rocket engines that give the initial burst of thrust at liftoff. SpaceX has so far safely recovered three Super Heavy boosters after launch with the goal of refurbishing and reusing the rocket parts to drive down costs. Expanding hazard areas The FAA said it would expand the size of the Starship hazard area — which is intended to keep aircraft and other vehicles out of the launch system’s flight path — from 885 nautical miles (1,018 miles) mapped out in earlier documents to 1,600 nautical miles (1,841 miles) for the Flight 9 test launch. The expanded keep-out zone is expected to affect as many as 175 flights, with an expected average delay time of 40 minutes, according to the FAA. The agency estimates such delays cost travelers about $50 per hour and cost passenger airlines as much as $100.80 per minute, or $6,048.00 per hour per delayed flight. “To minimize disruption,” the document states, “the launch window has been scheduled outside peak transit periods.” SpaceX has not yet publicly announced a target launch time for Flight 9. Falling debris risks The FAA also maps out debris response areas where it believes pieces of the vehicle might land if it explodes midflight. SpaceX said after both the Flight 7 and Flight 8 mishaps that debris mostly stayed within such areas. But in January, pieces of the failed Starship vehicle from Flight 7 notably wound up strewn across the islands of Turks and Caicos. There was also one report of property damage: A piece of debris struck a car on the island of South Caicos, the FAA confirmed at the time. Debris from the failed March test flight also landed near the Bahamas. “The FAA is in close contact and collaboration with the United Kingdom, Turks & Caicos Islands, Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba as the agency continues to monitor SpaceX’s compliance with all public safety and other regulatory requirements,” the agency said in a Thursday statement. “SpaceX is required to update its Flight Safety Analysis to account for all outcomes of previously flown flights including mishap events and to calculate and establish hazards areas,” the statement reads. There have been no reports of injuries related to Starship’s prior mishaps. In a January statement to CNN, the FAA said that it requires SpaceX to map out “hazard areas sufficient to ensure that the probability of casualty to a member of the public on land or on board a maritime vessel does not exceed one in one million.” Starship and the big picture While the company has faced backlash for its recent test flight failures and over CEO Elon Musk’s ties to the current presidential administration, the Starship vehicle’s eventual success is considered crucial to NASA’s goals. The space agency has already agreed to pay SpaceX up to $4 billion to carry astronauts down to the lunar surface on as many as two moon landing missions slated for later this decade. SpaceX’s partnership with NASA could also expand if the agency decides to do away with its own Space Launch System rocket, or SLS, as the Trump administration has suggested. The SLS has long elicited criticism due to its price tag, which could be between $2 billion and $4 billion per launch, according to a 2023 government accountability report. The White House’s preliminary budget document, which was issued May 2, recommended doing away with the SLS rocket after three flights. Phasing out the SLS rocket would likely leave Starship as the only option for getting astronauts into deep space — whether to the moon or Mars, which is the destination of choice for Musk and Jared Isaacman, a Musk confidant who Trump tapped to lead NASA. (The space agency is still awaiting the Senate’s final confirmation for Isaacman’s nomination.) Starship’s future SpaceX has long advertised Starship as offering game-changing affordability for its size. Musk has said the price per test flight has been about $50 million to $100 million. The prototypes flown so far, however, have only traveled on a suborbital trajectory, and they have not been equipped with some features that will be necessary for crewed missions, such as life support systems. SpaceX must also hash out how to refuel the vehicle as it sits in orbit around Earth, a procedure that will be necessary for journeys that travel deeper into space. Starship’s development process has sparked controversy in part because the company is employing an engineering approach it refers to as “rapid iterative development.” The philosophy emphasizes launching relatively cheap prototypes during the development process, aiming to quickly pinpoint and fix design issues. The method stands in contrast to the one NASA embraced for SLS, for example, which focused on extensive ground testing that all but guarantees success on the first launch attempt. Because of its unique development approach, SpaceX has been known to embrace fiery mishaps, while emphasizing that even failed test flights help engineers improve Starship’s design — perhaps quicker and more cheaply than if the company employed alternative engineering approaches. “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn,” the company has frequently said in statements issued after Starship flight failures. Such rapid and frequent testing, however, has led to high-profile, explosive failures throughout the company’s history that have long served as a rallying cry for detractors.