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FAA closes SpaceX Starship mishap investigation from April explosion, but not ready to let it fly

While SpaceX has its next flight-ready Starship and Super Heavy on the launch pad, it can’t take off until it gets the OK from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA announced Friday it had closed the investigation into the massive rocket’s “mishap” from an April 20 launch attempt that destroyed much of the launch pad at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas facility Starbase, and ended up with SpaceX sending a self-destruct command to the rocket off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico before it reached orbit.

But the FAA said that doesn’t mean it’s ready to let the new Starship get off the ground yet.

“The final report cites multiple root causes of the April 20, 2023, mishap and 63 corrective actions SpaceX must take to prevent mishap reoccurrence,” according to a press statement emailed by the FAA. “Corrective actions include redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical systems and components including the Autonomous Flight Safety System, and the application of additional change control practices.”

Testing development flight hardware in a flight environment is what enables our teams to quickly learn and execute design changes and hardware upgrades to improve the probability of success in the future. We learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems during… pic.twitter.com/kzMEBHwWyz

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 8, 2023

In a letter the FAA sent Friday to SpaceX’s Shana Diez, its director of Starship reliability, the FAA laid out the reasons it classified it as a mishap.

“During lift-off, structural failure of the launch pad deck foundation occurred, sending debris and sand into the air,” the letter said. “On ascent, the vehicle deviated from the expected trajectory, resulting in the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) issuing a destruct command. After an unexpected delay following AFSS activation, Starship broke up, resulting in the loss of the launch vehicle.”

As such, SpaceX was required to do a mishap report, and the FAA conducted its final review of that report on Aug. 21. The FAA stated that it oversaw the SpaceX-led investigation while granting NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board official observer status. The report was not made public because it includes proprietary data and U.S Export Control information, the FAA stated.

“The FAA has been provided with sufficient information and accepts the root causes and corrective actions described in the mishap report,” the letter continued. “Consequently, the FAA considers the mishap investigation that SpaceX was required to complete to be concluded.”

The April 20 flight was a one-time approval from the FAA, and more Starship flights will require SpaceX to submit to the FAA’s satisfaction that it has addressed all 63 corrective actions. SpaceX then has to apply for and receive “a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch.”

SpaceX stacks another Starship and Super Heavy for 1st time since launch explosion

Elon Musk’s company has already implemented several changes including the construction of a massive water deluge system and more rigid launch pad, as well as changes to the rocket that aim to solve the problems seen on the first launch.

The 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster are capable of more than 17 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, and the April launch saw that energy decimate the launch pad with what was a very long time before clearing the launch tower.

Musk said in a June interview that the new booster will have a higher thrust-to-weight liftoff, “so it will just spend less time on the ground.”

And the Starship itself, which when combined with Super Heavy stands at 395 feet tall, will actually fire up its own Raptor engines before complete separation from the booster in what he called “hot staging.”

“We shut down most of the engines on the booster leaving just a few running and then at the same time start the engines on the ship, or upper stage, which obviously results in kind of blasting the booster,” Musk said. “So then you have to protect the top of the boost stage from getting incinerated by the upper stage engines.”

If and when SpaceX gets FAA approval for a second attempt, the flight plan still calls for it to reach space, and do about 2/3 an orbit around Earth. The Super Heavy booster is slated for a hard landing in the Gulf of Mexico after separation while Starship is slated for a hard water landing near Hawaii. The system, though, is designed to be fully reusable with both booster and Starship able to make vertical landings.

If it makes orbit, it would surpass current record holder for most powerful orbital rocket held by NASA’s Space Launch System, which used 8.8 million pounds of thrust on the Artemis I mission last year to send the Orion spacecraft on its mission to the moon.

NASA is waiting on SpaceX’s Starship, though, so that it can move forward with the human landing aspect of its future Artemis missions. Artemis III currently slated for as early as December 2025 aims to return humans, including the first woman, to the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program in 1972.

SpaceX Starship delays could shift Artemis III away from moon landing, official says

A version of Starship won the contract to be NASA’s first Human Landing System for that Artemis III mission, designed to meet up with Orion in orbit around the moon and then fly two astronauts down to the moon’s south pole and return them back to Orion.

SpaceX has to manage a successful uncrewed moon landing with Starship before NASA will let humans on board as well.

NASA leaders said recently that delays to Starship would potentially force NASA to shift its Artemis III mission to something other than a lunar landing, perhaps as a mission to support construction of its planned lunar space station Gateway.

For SpaceX itself, it plans to fly dozens if not more than 100 operational launches of Starship before it lets any humans on board, as it too has at least three commercial human spaceflight missions already lined up in addition to the NASA mission.

“Testing development flight hardware in a flight environment is what enables our teams to quickly learn and execute design changes and hardware upgrades to improve the probability of success in the future,” SpaceX posted to its account on X, formerly Twitter. “We learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems during Starship’s first flight test.”

Test flights will continue from Texas, but SpaceX is also building out a Starship launch tower at Kennedy Space Center for when it begins operational flights.

“Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable launch system capable of carrying satellites, payloads, crew, and cargo to a variety of orbits and Earth, lunar or Martian landing sites,” SpaceX posted.