On Sunday, Starship and the Super Heavy booster lifted off around 8:25 a.m. EDT from SpaceX’s Starbase launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, on the rocket’s fifth suborbital test flight. But rather than splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, as it did on the previous flight, Super Heavy was caught in midair by a pair of metal “chopstick” arms the company refers to as “Mechazilla.”

It is the first time such a maneuver has been successfully completed and represents the program’s most ambitious milestone to date.

“The entire SpaceX team should take pride in the engineering feat they just accomplished,” the company said in a postlaunch update. “The world witnessed what the future will look like when Starship starts carrying crew and cargo to destinations on Earth, the moon, Mars and beyond.”

Built to Last

As SpaceX alluded to, Starship—which stands nearly 400 feet tall when stacked on Super Heavy—is being designed to one day ferry humans around the solar system.

The firm is also working under a $4 billion NASA contract to develop two human landing system (HLS) variants of Starship that will return Americans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions. The HLS will first fly on Artemis III, which is tentatively scheduled for September 2026 and will land NASA astronauts at the lunar south pole.

To develop such a vehicle, SpaceX will need to launch Starship hundreds of times. And to do that, both the rocket and booster will need to be turned around quickly. SpaceX therefore designed both components to be fully reusable. That makes Sunday’s mission—which returned Super Heavy to its launch pad intact—a key piece of validation.

“Congratulations to @SpaceX on its successful booster catch and fifth Starship flight test today!” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a post on X. “As we prepare to go back to the Moon under Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead—including to the South Pole region of the Moon and then on to Mars.”

Following liftoff, Super Heavy separated from Starship and reversed course back to Earth, descending at supersonic speed. The booster then fired a handful of engines to apply the brakes, slowing to a hover before Mechazilla snared it from the sky about seven minutes into the mission. It was a bull’s-eye landing and the first time the booster had launched and returned to the same pad. SpaceX captured the moment in real time.

“Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch attempt of the Super Heavy booster, which will require healthy systems on the booster and tower and a manual command from the mission’s flight director,” SpaceX said in a post on X.

Super Heavy is significantly larger than SpaceX’s ubiquitous Falcon 9 rocket, which it has successfully landed hundreds of times both on land and at sea. And because it lacks landing legs, SpaceX was forced to get creative.

The company achieved its goal remarkably quickly. Flight 4 was a huge step, as the booster splashed down “with half a centimeter accuracy,” according to Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX. Previous missions, however, lost the booster entirely.

According to Dan Huot, a SpaceX communications manager on Sunday’s live feed, “We’re going to start looking real soon at when we can catch a [Starship].”

Starship, meanwhile, completed its own objectives, executing hot-stage separation, ignition, and ascent to outer space. It coasted about halfway around the planet before reentering the atmosphere, flipping itself around, and making a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. A camera buoy captured that moment as well.

Like Super Heavy during Flight 4, the rocket tipped over and sunk into the ocean. This time, though, SpaceX upgraded Starship’s thermal systems for reentry, where conditions are hot enough to envelop the rocket in plasma. The upgrade appeared to prevent the loss of flaps and other hardware that were jettisoned previously.

“We were not intending to recover any of the ship’s hardware, so that was the best ending that we could have hoped for,” said SpaceX engineer Kate Tice during Sunday’s live stream.

Under Scrutiny

SpaceX says it intends to churn out thousands of Starships per year at its one million-square-foot Starfactory plant. But the company is frustrated by the pace of the FAA launch licensing process, even going so far as to air its grievances publicly.

The FAA took extra time to review the Flight 5 mission profile.

“SpaceX’s current license authorizing the Starship Flight 4 launch also allows for multiple flights of the same vehicle configuration and mission profile,” an agency spokesperson told FLYING last month. “SpaceX chose to modify both for its proposed Starship Flight 5 launch which triggered a more in-depth review.”

The FAA evaluated a new splashdown site in the Gulf of Mexico as well as what it predicted would be an unusually large sonic boom during the booster landing, prompting respective 60-day consultations with the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It has also proposed more than $630,000 in fines against SpaceX for allegedly violating the terms of its license during two previous missions, neither involving Starship.

According to FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker, the measures are “necessary” for safety. SpaceX takes a decidedly different perspective. It claims the agency communicated a September timeline for Flight 5 that was later revised to late November. Saturday’s approval of a launch license therefore came as a bit of a surprise.

“We continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” SpaceX said in a September update. “This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space.”

SpaceX also faces scrutiny for failing to contain a liquid oxygen spill at Starbase in violation of the Clean Water Act, the EPA told FLYING last month. The company ate a $150,000 fine but denied it expels anything other than regular drinking water.

What’s Next?

If it sticks to the Flight 5 mission profile for the next Starship test, SpaceX will be able to launch under its current license.

But if the firm makes significant modifications—as it is prone to do, given that each mission has been more ambitious than the last—it could become entangled in another FAA feud.

Starship’s debut crewed flight is intended to be the third mission of the Polaris Program—a series of private flights purchased from SpaceX by billionaire CEO Jared Isaacman, the first of which concluded last month. Before then, SpaceX plans to fly hundreds of missions without crew. CEO Elon Musk even said last month that the firm intends to launch routine, uncrewed Starship missions to Mars within two years.

NASA has estimated that the spacecraft will require about 15 test flights before the Starship HLS is ready to put humans back on the moon. The next step for SpaceX will be to validate orbital flight (all Starship missions so far have been suborbital) and demonstrate orbital maneuvers like propellant transfer. That’s exactly what the firm plans to do as early as next year, launching twin Starships that will mate and transfer fuel from one to the other.

Starship is loaded with about 10 million pounds of propellant, generating some 17 million pounds of thrust from its 13 Raptor engines. It boasts greater fuel capacity than any modern technology. But to give it enough juice to fly to the moon and back, it will need to fuel up at an orbital propellant depot. To hit its Artemis III deadline, NASA will need Starship to complete several missions to stock up that fuel supply. Officials are contemplating alternative mission profiles in case there isn’t enough time..

“The pacing item is the rate at which SpaceX can launch the systems that can fuel the depot,” said Lori Glaze, acting deputy associate administrator of NASA’s exploration directorate, earlier this month.

In furtherance of that objective, SpaceX is developing a second launch pad at Starbase. The company also seeks to launch and recover rockets from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which could increase Starship’s cadence.

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On Tuesday, as the company occasionally does when facing what it deems to be unfair treatment, SpaceX posted a lengthy update decrying the decision. According to the firm, the FAA had assured it that Starship would get the green light this month. It claims the rocket has been ready to fly since early August, an assertion CEO Elon Musk reiterated last week.

“Unfortunately, we continue to be stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” the firm said. “This should never happen and directly threatens America’s position as the leader in space.”

With the ability to be used multiple times on the cheap, Starship is expected to be a game-changer for U.S. spaceflight. SpaceX wants to launch the rocket up to 120 times per year from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Musk last week claimed the vehicle will reach Mars within two years.

SpaceX is also developing a Starship human landing system (HLS), a lunar lander variant of the spacecraft, for NASA’s Artemis III mission, which would return Americans to the moon for the first time in more than half a century. Starship will require a few more test flights before the mission, which is scheduled for late 2026.

That’s not much time, but SpaceX plans to get there using its philosophy of iterative design. Basically, the company puts flight hardware through real-world testing as often as possible to learn quickly and improve the chances of success on the next flight. The strategy helped it commercialize the now-ubiquitous Falcon rocket.

“The more we fly safely, the faster we learn; the faster we learn, the sooner we realize full and rapid rocket reuse,” SpaceX said.

Each Starship test flight has flown farther and accomplished more than the last. The fourth, in June, marked the first time both Starship and the Super Heavy booster made it back to Earth in one piece after the first two attempts ended in explosions.

Keeping with the trend, Flight 5 will feature the most ambitious goal yet. SpaceX will attempt to catch Super Heavy midair using two large “chopstick” arms, returning it safely to the Starbase launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. 

The maneuver could pose risk to Starbase’s launch tower, but SpaceX says it has been preparing for years. The delay could create a ripple effect that hampers future Starship test flights. Safely returning the booster is a critical piece of the system’s reusability.

“It’s understandable that such a unique operation would require additional time to analyze from a licensing perspective,” the firm said. “Unfortunately, instead of focusing resources on critical safety analysis and collaborating on rational safeguards to protect both the public and the environment, the licensing process has been repeatedly derailed by issues ranging from the frivolous to the patently absurd.”

What’s the Holdup?

SpaceX said the FAA communicated that a launch license would be awarded this month, but the process has been delayed due to “four open environmental issues” it deems unnecessary.

Starship’s maiden voyage in April 2023 was a brief but bombastic one. The FAA grounded the rocket as it investigated the launch and explosion, which shook buildings, shattered windows, and sent ash and debris flying miles away.

The impact was more severe than SpaceX anticipated due to the lack of a flame deflector—a common fixture at launch sites that uses water to absorb energy and heat—beneath Starbase. According to Musk, the system was absent because it “wasn’t ready in time” and the company thought the pad could withstand the launch.

The FAA’s handling of Starship’s initial launch license prompted a lawsuit from five environmental groups, which the agency reportedly has sought to dismiss. With the flame deflector installed, subsequent Starship flights have not destroyed the launch pad.

However, the FAA has approved two 60-day consultations that could extend the timeline for a fifth mission.

According to SpaceX, the only proposed change to the mission’s hot-stage jettison—during which the top of the Super Heavy booster is expelled—is a new splashdown location, which it says would not raise the risk of harm to marine life. Still, the FAA signed off on a consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service to evaluate the new site.

“SpaceX’s current license authorizing the Starship Flight 4 launch also allows for multiple flights of the same vehicle configuration and mission profile,” the agency told FLYING. “SpaceX chose to modify both for its proposed Starship Flight 5 launch which triggered a more in-depth review.”

SpaceX, though, fears the review could be longer.

“The mechanics of these types of consultations outline that any new questions raised during that time can reset the 60-day counter, over and over again,” it said.

A separate consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), requested by the FAA due to Flight 5’s larger sonic boom radius, could add to the delays. A sonic boom occurs as Starship slows from supersonic speeds on its way back to Earth.

“SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously reviewed,” the FAA said. “This requires the FAA to consult with other agencies.”

According to SpaceX, both agencies have studied Starship booster landings and concluded there is no significant environmental impact from sonic booms. The firm also claims studies back the idea that sonic booms have no detrimental effect on wildlife—but the jury is still out on that one.

According to an evaluation by the California Coastal Commission of SpaceX’s request to increase Falcon 9 launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, experts don’t fully understand the effects of noise on animals. The commission rejected the request in part because sonic booms generated by Falcon 9—a less powerful rocket than Starship—force too many closures and evacuations of local parks.

“At Starbase, we implement an extensive list of mitigations developed with federal and state agencies, many of which require year-round monitoring and frequent updates to regulators and consultation with independent biological experts,” SpaceX said.

Among other things, the company says it works with a local nonprofit to transport injured sea turtles for treatment and monitors bird local populations, using drones to search for nests before and after launch and. It also “adopted” Boca Chica Beach through a Texas state program and sponsors quarterly cleanups it says have removed hundreds of pounds of trash.

A CNBC report last month, which SpaceX swiftly rebuked, alleged that the company violated the Clean Water Act. The Environmental Protection Agency, though, told FLYING it did indeed violate that law.

Days before Starship’s third test flight in March, the EPA issued an order directing the company to eliminate “unpermitted discharges,” citing a liquid oxygen spill from the flame deflector’s water deluge system that seeped into the surrounding wetlands. SpaceX was forced to apply for a new permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), which it did in July, but still ate a fine of nearly $150,000 to resolve the violation.

In response, the company denied it ever discharged pollutants or operated the deluge system without TCEQ permission. According to SpaceX, the device uses “literal drinking water” and has been deemed safe by the FAA, TCEQ, and USFWS.

SpaceX further claimed that the EPA issued its order without knowledge of its TCEQ license or “a basic understanding of the facts” of the system’s operation. It added that the fines are “entirely tied to disagreements over paperwork” and stem from a simple misunderstanding.

“We chose to settle so that we can focus our energy on completing the missions and commitments that we have made to the U.S. government, commercial customers, and ourselves,” SpaceX said. “Paying fines is extremely disappointing when we fundamentally disagree with the allegations, and we are supported by the fact that EPA has agreed that nothing about the operation of our flame deflector will need to change. Only the name of the permit has changed.”

The proposed settlement is open for public comment until October 21.

Singled Out?

The implication by SpaceX is that it is being unfairly targeted for its successes.

The company is prolific within the commercial spaceflight industry—experts estimate it accounted for 87 percent of all spacecraft mass space operators sent into orbit in 2023. At the same time, it handles more NASA missions than any of the agency’s private contractors.

That dominance occasionally draws ire from competitors such as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, or, as SpaceX puts it, “bad-faith hysterics from online detractors or special interest groups.”

“Despite a small, but vocal, minority of detractors trying to game the regulatory system to obstruct and delay the development of Starship, SpaceX remains committed to the mission at hand,” the company said.

NASA has made it known that it intends to become one of many customers within a commercial space ecosystem, rather than a service provider, by the end of the decade. As SpaceX continues to snap up NASA contracts—including an agreement to deorbit the International Space Station, ushering in that new era—rivals and critics may fear that its supremacy will only grow.

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Starship and the Super Heavy booster finally made it back to Earth following the spacecraft’s fourth integrated flight test (IFT-4), which was the main goal of the mission that launched from Boca Chica, Texas. As SpaceX put it, “the payload for this test was the data.”

Super Heavy splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico after jettisoning from Starship about four minutes into the flight. Starship, meanwhile, flew nearly halfway around the world over the course of about 40 minutes before splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

External cameras and on board Starlink satellites gave viewers a rare live look at Starship’s reentry into Earth’s atmosphere from its suborbital flight path. The video feed appeared to show the loss of several heat shield tiles and damage to one of the flaps—which control the vehicle as it decelerates from hypersonic speeds—as plasma built up around the spacecraft.

Live footage cut in and out several times, prompting cheers from the SpaceX team each time the feed was restored. Crews toasted marshmallows in celebration of Starship’s inaugural landing burn, which slowed it down for a “soft” ocean landing. Then, finally, after much anticipation, the gargantuan spacecraft splashed down for the first time at T-plus 1 hour and 6 minutes.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in a post on X, the social media platform he acquired in 2022. “Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic achievement!!”

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who is betting on Starship to complete the necessary test flights in time for SpaceX to prepare a Starship Human Landing System (HLS) for the Artemis III mission—NASA’s first lunar landing attempt since the Apollo missions—also sang the praises of IFT-4.

After successfully making it to suborbit and back, the arrow is pointing up for Starship.

Each of the spacecraft’s first two integrated test flights ended in explosions, and its third was cut short just after reentering the atmosphere. All three attempts resulted in the spacecraft’s grounding by the FAA.

But SpaceX painted these as successes. According to the company, Starship’s development falls under its philosophy of rapid design iteration. Essentially, the firm is okay with blowing up a few rockets if it can collect data that helps it hone the design, increasing the chances of success on future launches.

A reentry and soft landing was the primary objective of Thursday’s flight test, validating that Starship and Super Heavy—which are designed to be reusable—could survive the extreme conditions during approach and landing.

At present, it’s unclear whether the extent of the damage will prevent the rocket from flying again. But with both stages back on Earth, it seems unlikely that the FAA would move to ground Starship for a fourth time.

“The fourth flight of Starship made major strides to bring us closer to a rapidly reusable future,” SpaceX said in an update on its website. “Its accomplishments will provide data to drive improvements as we continue rapidly developing Starship into a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, and beyond.”

That would mean Musk and SpaceX can turn to the next step in Artemis preparations: an in-orbit propellant transfer demonstration. Following that, Starship will need to complete an uncrewed lunar landing, which could require multiple launches.

The final phase will be a crewed flight test, in which the spacecraft will land billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman on the moon. Isaacman is the driving force behind the Polaris Program, which in 2022 purchased three flights from SpaceX in an effort to advance human spaceflight. The program’s first mission, Polaris Dawn, is expected to launch this summer on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. It will culminate in the crewed flight of Starship.

It’s difficult to gauge exactly how many Starship launches SpaceX will need to complete before the rocket is certified for routine missions. But the company is under a time crunch.

Already, Artemis III has been pushed back from 2025 to September 2026. And NASA, facing competition from Russia, China, and others to expand the envelope for human spaceflight, will likely want to stick to that timeline.

If that’s the case, SpaceX will need to see continued positive results from rapid design interaction. The good news is that Starship appears to be on the right trajectory.

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The agency says it plans to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the potential effects of awarding a commercial launch vehicle operator license for Starship operations at Kennedy’s Launch Complex-39A. To date, all Starship test flights have launched from SpaceX’s Starbase launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, which serves as its primary research, development, and flight test facility for the gargantuan rocket.

SpaceX will need to obtain a vehicle operator license before launching Starship from Kennedy, an action that falls under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the FAA says. As such, it and NASA determined an EIS to be the appropriate level of scrutiny. 

SpaceX will prepare the assessment itself under FAA supervision, at NASA’s request. Obtaining the EIS would not guarantee the issuance of a vehicle operator license, but it is a required step under NEPA.

SpaceX’s proposal calls for the construction of launch, landing, and other infrastructure at Launch Complex-39A that would support as many as 44 launches per year using Starship and the company’s Super Heavy booster. The site hosts launches of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

The new infrastructure would allow Starship—which is designed to be reusable—to land back on the launchpad or a droneship, a sea-borne landing platform. The proposal also calls for expendable rocket and booster landings in the Atlantic Ocean.

The FAA will hold one virtual and three in-person public scoping meetings, inviting relevant agencies and organizations, local Native American tribes, and members of the public to submit comments on the potential environmental impacts of the proposal.

The submission period for public comments opened Friday with the publication in the Federal Register of an FAA notice of intent to prepare the EIS. Stakeholders can attend in-person scoping meetings on June 12 and 13, followed by a virtual meeting on June 17. More information is available on the FAA website.

Starship so far has flown three uncrewed orbital test flights, each more successful than the last. However, the first of those flights, which launched in April 2023, caused a litany of unintended environmental effects, shattering windows and sending plumes of ashy particulate as far as 6 miles away from Starbase.

The debris field created by the launch had a far wider radius than anticipated, due in part to SpaceX’s decision to forgo the installation of a water-cooled steel plate beneath the launchpad. A water deluge system was installed for Starship’s second test flight, which greatly improved containment of the debris field.

Following Starship’s first test flight, a coalition of environmental groups also sued the FAA over its handling of the launch. The groups accuse the agency of allowing SpaceX to take the reins on evaluating the rocket’s environmental impact.

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Starship’s next mission, IFT-4, will be the massive rocket’s fourth since it made its maiden voyage in April 2023. The spacecraft launched for the third time in March, but it was also grounded by the FAA for a third time after SpaceX was unable to recover the rocket and booster when they reentered the atmosphere.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on Wednesday said SpaceX is now preparing for that fourth test flight. The goal, he said, is for the spacecraft to survive the fireball that forms around it during reentry, when temperatures reach their highest point.

Gwynne Shotwell, chief operating officer of SpaceX, said last week that the flight could happen as soon as early May. It will not have a payload.

SpaceX completed a full-duration static fire test of the Starship upper stage’s six Raptor engines on Monday, less than two weeks after its third voyage. A static fire test involves the loading of propellant and firing of the engines while the rocket is bolted to the launch mount. It is intended to ensure the engine is functioning properly and assess factors like pressure and temperature.

The company on Wednesday completed a second static fire of a single upper-stage engine using the spacecraft’s header tanks. These fuel the engines as they fire shortly before landing, which returns the reusable rocket to a vertical orientation as it approaches the landing pad.

IFT-4, if it goes according to Musk’s plan, would mark the first time Starship and Super Heavy make it to orbit and back to Earth in two pieces. Each of the rocket’s first two test flights ended in explosions. But the third attempt, while still resulting in the loss of the rocket and booster, was comfortably SpaceX’s most successful one yet.

Starship’s six second-stage engines successfully powered on and carried the rocket to orbit for the first time. While in orbit, it achieved several more firsts, including a critical propellant transfer test that demonstrated a maneuver the spacecraft will need to perform on future missions to the moon and beyond, including for NASA. The space agency this month applauded the company’s effort.

Starship also demonstrated the ability to open and close its payload door, which could one day be used to deploy Starlink satellites and other cargo, while in orbit.

After coasting nearly halfway around the Earth, Starship reentered the atmosphere for the first time, adding to the milestones. But after that SpaceX lost communications with the rocket and announced it believed it to be lost.

Before Starship can fly again it will need to be cleared by the FAA, which initiated a mishap investigation following the third test flight. A mishap investigation is standard procedure whenever a launch does not go according to plan. The process concludes with SpaceX obtaining a fresh launch license and could take anywhere from a few months to a few weeks.

Musk, however, does not anticipate any future slowdowns for Starship. He earlier this month said in a post on X that SpaceX would aim for six more Starship launches this year, which would be an unprecedented number for a new super heavy-lift rocket.

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The FAA on Thursday initiated its third mishap investigation into Starship after the 400-foot-tall spacecraft and booster were lost during its third orbital test flight. Both components are intended to be reusable.

Starship will remain grounded until the FAA concludes its investigation and awards a fresh launch license. However, Thursday’s flight undoubtedly built on previous Starship missions, during which the rocket and booster exploded minutes after takeoff. This time around, they flew halfway around the planet.

Starship stands taller than the Statue of Liberty and on Thursday generated nearly twice the thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System, which owned the previous record. Orbital test flights are intended to evaluate the spacecraft’s capabilities for NASA Artemis moon missions, which aim to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.

Starship and the Super Heavy booster lifted off Thursday morning from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas. The spacecraft generated 16 million pounds of thrust from 33 Raptor engines, the most ever in a rocket booster.

Unlike past attempts, Thursday’s mission, OT-3, traveled nearly halfway around the Earth as intended. For the first time, Starship reached space. But when the rocket reentered the atmosphere about 45 minutes into the mission, SpaceX lost communications. The company later said the vehicle did not survive reentry. Starship was intended to splash down in the Indian Ocean, and the booster in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, while not fully completed, the mission was vastly more successful than previous flights. Starship for the first time demonstrated the ability to reach orbital speeds and open its payload door—which could one day deploy Starlink satellites and other cargo—during flight.

Another crucial feat was a liquid oxygen transfer between two tanks, part of a NASA tipping-point demonstration and a key capability for missions to the moon and beyond.

A SpaceX representative estimated the company will need to complete 10 refueling missions before its Starship Human Landing System (HLS)—the capsule that will transport astronauts to the moon during Artemis III—can land on the lunar surface. The representative did not convey how many orbital test flights will be required, but Starship will need to complete at least one mission in full before moving to the next phase.

With three orbital test flights under Starship’s belt, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Tuesday predicted the rocket will complete six more this year—an unprecedented number for a new super heavy lift rocket.

Though the flight undoubtedly builds upon Starship’s previous missions, the FAA will nevertheless investigate the loss of communications, which it said affected both the rocket and booster.

A mishap investigation is standard whenever a launch does not go according to plan. The goal is to determine the root cause of the event and identify corrective actions to keep it from happening again.

The regulator said it would be involved in every step of the process. It will need to approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions the company intends to take, before a license can be reissued.

“A return to flight is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety,” the agency said. “In addition, SpaceX may need to modify its license to incorporate any corrective actions and meet all other licensing requirements.”

No public injuries or property damage were reported from OT-3, the FAA said. That was not the case during Starship’s first test flight, which damaged buildings and sent plumes of ash and debris flying miles away.

The investigation into that incident closed within seven months, and the agency’s second inquiry was completed in just three months. Since Thursday’s test was far more successful than the previous two, and no injuries or damage were reported, the investigation timeline may be on the shorter side.

Accidents are not particularly uncommon for spacecraft. In fact, a Japanese rocket called Kairos and a Chinese model called Yuanzheng-1S both suffered anomalies this week. But the delays caused by Starship investigations may have implications for the Artemis missions.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on Thursday’s test flight. But with Americans’ return to the moon aboard Artemis III now delayed to 2026, the agency will be expecting a usable Starship HLS by then. Jim Free, associate administrator of NASA, predicted vehicle’s development may take more time than previously thought.

Musk, meanwhile, has touted Starship as a ferry to Mars, envisioning trips to the Red Planet carrying hundreds of humans at a time. Those ambitions will depend on SpaceX ironing out the kinks with the 400-foot-tall rocket and booster.

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SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster flew for the second time on Saturday, and the results were a mixed bag. Stage separation—the point at which the spaceship’s maiden voyage in April went off the rails—was a success. But like last time, both the rocket and booster exploded and were lost, prompting another mishap investigation by the FAA. Starship will not be able to fly again until the investigation and a launch license evaluation are concluded.

The 400-foot-tall spacecraft took off from Starbase—SpaceX’s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas, just off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico—Saturday morning after the launch was postponed from Friday. All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster fired this time, unlike in April, when a handful of them failed.

Starship’s second test flight successfully debuted a hot-stage separation system, one of “well over 1,000” changes SpaceX made to the design, according to CEO Elon Musk. In hot-stage separation, the upper stage engines are ignited while the booster’s engines are still firing and the two stages remain attached. Previously, the company turned off the booster engines first.

According to SpaceX, Saturday was the first time a vehicle as large as Starship successfully pulled off the technique.

Although the new system achieved its goal, the booster promptly exploded—or experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” in SpaceX parlance—over the Gulf of Mexico, where it was meant to splash down intact. A few minutes later, after the Starship upper stage reached space, SpaceX engineer and livestream host John Insprucker said mission control lost contact with the spacecraft.

“We think we may have lost the second stage,” Insprucker said on the broadcast.

About 47 minutes into SpaceX’s livestream and eight minutes into the flight, as a camera follows the upper stage, an explosion is visible. Insprucker said engineers believed an automated flight termination plan was initiated, though the reason is still unclear. 

Starship had reached about 91 miles in altitude—well past the widely accepted boundary between the atmosphere and space—but was expected to fly more than halfway around the Earth before splashing down off the coast of Hawaii.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and [Saturday’s] test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary,” the company said on Musk’s social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Starship’s second voyage lasted twice as long as its first, and SpaceX appears to be getting close to nailing stage separation. However, both of the spacecraft’s reusable components were lost. And the behemoth of a rocket is now out of commission while the FAA investigates—again.

“A mishap occurred during the SpaceX Starship OFT-2 launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, November 18,” the agency said in a statement. “The anomaly resulted in a loss of the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA will oversee the SpaceX-led mishap investigation to ensure SpaceX complies with its FAA-approved mishap investigation plan and other regulatory requirements.”

A mishap investigation—which had grounded Starship since April—is standard when a launch does not go as planned. SpaceX will now need to compile a report on what went wrong, as well as actions it can take to ensure the next launch goes smoothly, both of which must be approved by the FAA.

The company will also need to apply for a second license modification in order to add more Starship launches to its manifest, which can involve coordination with other federal agencies such as NASA. 

There is no timeline for either process, but the FAA’s initial mishap investigation opened in April and was closed in September. A modified launch license followed in mid-November.

However, unlike the previous test, a water-cooled steel plate installed beneath Starbase prevented ash and debris from being flung for miles. And having been through the investigation and license evaluation process already, it’s possible SpaceX is able to get through a second round of inquiries more quickly.

Fly Me to the Moon

SpaceX’s “iterative design” or “fail fast, but learn faster” philosophy has allowed the company to make steady progress on its Starlink satellites and Crew Dragon capsules, both of which are launching routinely. It could be argued that’s been the case for Starship so far as well, given the successes the company achieved with Saturday’s launch. 

Still, SpaceX may need to pick up the pace. Musk’s ultimate goal is for Starship to eventually ferry hundreds of humans at a time to the moon, Mars, and beyond. The SpaceX CEO has claimed it will land astronauts on Mars by 2029. Those early arrivals are expected to build a base that could one day support a colony of 1 million on the “Red Planet.” But before Musk turns to other planets, there are projects on Earth riding on his company’s success.

In 2021, NASA picked SpaceX to land humans on the moon for the first time in half a century, contracting it to develop a variant of Starship capable of putting astronauts on the lunar surface. That mission, Artemis III, will be preceded by an uncrewed Starship demonstration flight to the moon and back. It will be followed by the Artemis IV mission, for which SpaceX has already been enlisted.

Simply put, NASA won’t be able to get the U.S. back in the space race without Starship. Already, agency officials are “concerned” about SpaceX’s progress, with one top manager predicting Artemis III will “probably” slide from 2025 to 2026.

Musk and Co. are left with a conundrum. To keep Artemis on schedule, SpaceX will need to conduct more Starship test flights, and fast. But moving too quickly can create outcomes such as Saturday’s, which, despite building on the first flight, caused the FAA to intervene. Then again, there’s little time to waste, and the company won’t be able to learn much about the largest rocket ever built without flying it.

As SpaceX continues to iterate on Starship, the company is also contending with a lawsuit against the FAA, which it joined as a co-defendant in May. The suit, filed by five environmental groups, alleges the regulator wasn’t thorough enough in its assessment of the rocket’s potential impacts on the surrounding wildlife.

Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the case, told FLYING the lawsuit is still ongoing. Margolis criticized the FAA’s written reevaluation of Starship’s environmental impact, arguing the agency should have required more of SpaceX before green lighting both test flights. He said the center is considering adding more claims to its suit for the FAA’s failure to fully analyze the impact of April’s launch.

More recently, SpaceX has come under fire for its workplace safety culture, which a special report from Reuters earlier this month characterized as “lax.” According to the report, investigators used government records and interviews to determine there were 600 previously unreported injuries suffered on the job by SpaceX workers—including one death—since 2014. Several U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about the report’s findings.

While the lawsuit and Reuters investigation did not impact Saturday’s launch, they present more obstacles for SpaceX to overcome before Starship flies to the moon. Another setback could have a ripple effect on America’s space exploration goals.

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The post The Implications of SpaceX’s Second Starship Test Flight appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

“Was just informed that approval to launch should happen in time for a Friday launch,” Musk wrote in a post on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

The SpaceX CEO did not elaborate on who gave him that timeline, and some of his previous predictions have failed to come to fruition. This time, however, Musk’s timeline is backed by the FAA: The agency announced Wednesday afternoon that Starship and the Super Heavy booster are cleared for another takeoff.

“The FAA has given license authorization for the second launch of the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy vehicle,” the agency said in a statement viewed by FLYING. “The FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements.”

The regulator said the modified license applies to all phases of SpaceX’s proposed operation, from preflight preparation to splashdown, but only for one launch. According to an air traffic control advisory on its website, the launch and reentry mission, “Space X Starship Super Heavy Flt 2,” will take place in Boca Chica, Texas—the site of SpaceX’s Starbase launch pad—on Friday. Backup dates are listed as Saturday and Sunday.

Ready for Launch

On October 31, the FAA confirmed it had completed the safety review portion of its Starship license evaluation. A modified license could not be granted until the evaluation was finished.

The announcement came with the caveat that the agency was still working through an environmental review, which a spokesperson told FLYING is the “last major element” of the process. That step required coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to produce an updated biological assessment of the potential impacts of a Starship launch on the surrounding environment.

Aubry Buzek, who runs public affairs for USFWS’s Texas office, confirmed to FLYING that the agency’s formal consultation with the FAA concluded on Tuesday, clearing the way for a license modification. On Wednesday, the FAA published a written reevaluation of Starship’s environmental assessment, concluding that there are “no significant environmental changes” compared to prior documentation.

According to USFWS, the environmental assessment focused on a new water deluge system that was installed on Starbase to shield the launch pad from the flames of Starship’s 33 Raptor engines. In April, the engines blew a massive crater under the launcher and scattered ash and debris as far as the town of Port Isabel, about 6 miles away.

Starbase did not have such a system for Starship’s inaugural launch, which may have contributed to the damage. Musk said plans to install a water-cooled steel plate beneath the launcher were scrapped because it “wasn’t ready in time,” adding that “we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag [concrete] would make it through one launch.”

With a modified launch license in hand, Starship’s second test flight could follow in just a few days—the first one came less than a week after the FAA’s initial green light.

As was the case with that launch, the flight will be broadcast live on SpaceX’s website. In addition to the new flame deflector, it will debut a hot-stage separation system and thrust vector control system for the Super Heavy booster engines.

The flight itself is expected to last about 90 minutes, with the Starship upper stage splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

High Stakes

Plenty is riding on the success of the next Starship launch. NASA picked SpaceX to develop a version of the rocket that will land humans on the moon for the first time in half a century during the Artemis III mission, which is scheduled for 2025. Before then, the company will fly an uncrewed demonstration mission to the moon.

But NASA officials are already “concerned” about the number of test flights Starship must complete even before that demonstration. A top NASA manager said Artemis III will “probably” slip to 2026 as a result.

A delay to Artemis III could throw a wrench into NASA’s other mission timelines. The space agency has already enlisted SpaceX to conduct a second crewed landing demonstration in 2027 as part of the subsequent Artemis IV mission. The goal is to develop a lander “that meets NASA’s sustaining requirements for missions beyond Artemis III,” such as docking with the upcoming Gateway space station and accommodating up to four crew members.

Following Artemis, SpaceX said the ultimate objective for Starship is to ferry hundreds of humans at a time to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Musk himself has claimed the firm will land humans on Mars by 2029. The plan is for the first batch of astronauts to set up a small base, with the aim of one day supporting a colony of 1 million earthlings on the “Red Planet.”

For fans of science fiction, it’s an exciting prospect. To get there, SpaceX will first need to prove Starship can reach orbit without exploding, but the hope is for that litmus test to happen in the next few days.

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That’s been one of CEO Elon Musk’s retorts to those who stand in the way of his goal of commercial space dominance. And at the moment, the regulator may pose the greatest threat.

There appears to be a misunderstanding between the two surrounding Starship’s second test flight, which Musk in June said would happen in “six to eight weeks.” We’re now well past that timeframe. But on Tuesday, the SpaceX, Tesla, and X (formerly Twitter) CEO took to the latter platform to share some good news: the most powerful rocket ever built is “ready to launch.”

Starship is ready to launch, awaiting FAA license approval https://t.co/WjENkdudo9

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 6, 2023

Concurrently, SpaceX posted images of the Starship rocket stacked on top of the Super Heavy booster at the company’s Starbase launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas. 

However, the FAA felt the need to clarify that Starship is still very much under investigation, casting doubt on Musk’s optimism.

“The SpaceX Starship mishap investigation remains open,” the agency told FLYING in a statement. “The FAA will not authorize another Starship launch until SpaceX implements the corrective actions identified during the mishap investigation and demonstrates compliance with all the regulatory requirements of the license modification process.”

The FAA clarified the ball is technically in its court. It’s still reviewing the final mishap investigation report SpaceX submitted in August and identifying the corrective actions the firm must take. Those will include modifications to its launch license to comply with regulatory requirements before it receives another green light to launch. A mishap investigation is standard when a launch or its impact does not go as planned.

Eric Berger of Ars Technica speculated, given the FAA’s update, Starship’s next launch is “likely to occur no earlier than the last 10 days of the month.”

Where Starship’s Problems Began

The FAA has now repeatedly communicated that Starship is not yet ready for another test flight. But that hasn’t diminished the optimism of Musk, SpaceX, and their supporters.

The agency’s investigation follows an April orbital test flight that began and ended in flames. The Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor engines roared to life on the launchpad, sending the 400-foot-tall rocket and booster 24 miles high before they spiraled out of control and exploded. SpaceX said it sent a command to Starship’s flight termination system (FTS) after the rocket and booster failed to separate as planned, causing a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The explosion sent debris tumbling into the Gulf of Mexico. But even worse for SpaceX, the fireball created by the first-stage engines severely damaged the launchpad, carving out a massive crater.

The impact would also prove to be an issue for the surrounding area. It sparked a 3.5-acre brush fire and sent ash-like particulate and concrete and metal debris raining down as far away as Port Isabel, a town about 6.5 miles north of Starbase. Residents also reported broken windows, shaking buildings, and ear-splitting noise. Musk described the impact as a “rock tornado.”

The debris field was expected to span about 700 acres or just one square mile, equivalent to that of Starship’s largest explosion to date. Immediately, the FAA grounded Starship, opened its mishap investigation, and began reviewing data on the FTS (which took 40 seconds to initiate after activation) and the environmental impact on the nearby area. Starbase is surrounded by protected wetlands and the Gulf of Mexico.

The launch and explosion also sparked a lawsuit against the FAA brought by five environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Save Rio Grande Valley. The plaintiffs allege the agency allowed SpaceX to self-conduct a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) in lieu of a more robust, FAA-conducted environmental impact statement (EIS) “based on SpaceX’s preference.” They claim the PEA allowed Starship to fly sooner, while an EIS may have mitigated some of the launch’s effects.

If SpaceX and the FAA lose the case and are forced to conduct an EIS, it could add months—or potentially years—to Starship’s launch timeline. SpaceX joined the suit as a codefendant in June, and the company and the FAA are now seeking to dismiss it.

Still, the legal drama hasn’t stopped Musk from sharing what on the surface appear to be promising updates.

Updates to Starship and Starbase

Since April’s explosion, SpaceX has made “over 1,000 changes” to Starship and the Starbase launchpad, Musk told journalist Ashlee Vance in a discussion on Twitter Spaces in June.

The biggest is the addition of a water deluge system to the pad, which should shield it from the fireball and ear-splitting noise created by the 33 lower-stage engines and prevent debris from scattering for miles. The system is “basically like a gigantic upside-down shower head” that blasts water at the rocket while it sits on the pad, Musk told Vance.

The SpaceX CEO said he scrapped plans to install a water-cooled steel plate beneath the launcher for Starship’s first flight because it “wasn’t ready in time.” He later added the company thought the concrete would survive the flames.

The new system was evaluated during a static fire test in August, turning fire from the engines into steam. However, SpaceX reportedly did not apply for the proper environmental permits that would allow it to dispose of industrial wastewater from the test.

The company also upgraded the interstage area between the Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster. The changes will enable a “hot staging” maneuver, allowing the upper-stage engines to ignite before the booster engines finish burning, which Musk told Vance would improve Super Heavy’s mass-to-orbit performance by 10 percent. He added that the next flight will include more uniform engines, contrasting them to the “hodgepodge” of hardware used on the maiden voyage.

Outside of those key changes, SpaceX has conducted propellant load tests and tested a modified version of Starship’s FTS. In recent weeks, it completed hot fire tests of the Booster 9 rocket and upper-stage Ship 25 prototypes that were largely successful.

Starship’s next flight will not carry a payload. Rather, it will seek to demonstrate the performance of the 33 booster engines, stage separation between Starship and Super Heavy, and the ignition of the rocket’s six upper-stage engines. If it’s able to withstand the duration of the flight, it will splash down north of the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

As it gears up for another test launch, SpaceX continues to deploy Starlink satellites, including a record-breaking 62nd orbital launch of the year earlier this week. Musk said SpaceX in 2023 accounts for around eight in ten payload deliveries from Earth to orbit. By 2024, he expects the company to handle nine in ten —and one day, he hopes to exceed 99 percent.

SpaceX also sends astronauts and paying customers to the International Space Station on its Crew Dragon spacecraft through partnerships with NASA and Axiom Space. In a few years, it will provide the system that transports astronauts from lunar orbit to the moon’s surface and back again on NASA’s Artemis III mission, scheduled for December 2025. 

However, the agency all but blamed SpaceX for a potential delay to that timeline, with associate administrator for exploration systems development Jim Free worrying about the company’s “significant number of launches to go.”

Ultimately, Musk and SpaceX’s goal is to one day ferry hundreds of humans at a time to Mars. Musk has stated his hopes to establish a permanent human colony on the red planet by 2050—an aim NASA appears to share.

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The post SpaceX Starship Is ‘Ready to Launch’ Again—Or Is It? appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

According to the FAA, SpaceX must take a total 75 actions to mitigate the environmental impact of its Starship/Super Heavy launch facilities, 53 of which deal with biological resources.

Even after those actions are taken, FAA approval for the launch site will still depend on additional reviews.

Many of the actions coincide with concerns vocalized by Boca Chica residents—including potential harm to fish, wildlife, plants, and natural resources.

The PEA lists several points of concern, such as:

• Potential impacts on protected species and habitats
• Restrictions on access to public areas such as local roads and Boca Chica Beach
• Potential impacts on minority and low-income residents
• Degradation of the environment due to test and launch operations

The PEA also lists positive impacts, voiced by supporters of the launch site, such as:

• Economic benefits to the regional economy
• Continued innovation and progress in commercial space transportation
• Job creation

The first draft of the PEA was published on September 17, 2021, and it garnered more than 18,000 public comments.

Between two public hearings regarding the draft PEA, commenters from around the country voiced their opinion on the matter. Support for the project was seemingly split among local residents and officials.

“I don’t just ask you, I beg you to give them that permit,” said Brownsville City Commissioner Jessica Tetreau. “There are so many people here in the Brownsville area who have benefited from this project coming to our area.”

Others, like local resident Emma Guevara, rejected the notion entirely.

“I am appalled by the audacity of all these pro-SpaceX supporters spouting the exact same rhetoric, spotted by a billionaire with nothing but his own interest in mind so that he can make more money off of his apartheid emeralds,” she said during a hearing. “This has nothing to do with you. Listen to directly impacted voices. The FAA needs to, at the very least, do an environmental impact statement, but at the most, this entire project should be canceled.”

How We Got Here

SpaceX is developing one of the world’s most powerful launch vehicles, dubbed Starship, with the power of its Super Heavy booster. Starship has undergone previous test launches. In one, Starship exploded shortly after landing.

In order to continue work on Starship and Super Heavy, SpaceX has requested to expand its facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. To do so, SpaceX must gain a license to expand, test, and launch the spacecraft.

SpaceX’s proposal is still pending approval.

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