Just five days after its debut flight, SpaceX’s Starship V3 megarocket has been grounded.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just declared the May 22 Starship V3 launch a mishap and is requiring an investigation before the huge vehicle can take to the skies again.
“A return to flight of the Starship-Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety,” FAA officials wrote in an update today (May 27).
Starship consists of two elements, both of which are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable — a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or Ship for short.
SpaceX believes that Starship — the biggest and most powerful launcher ever built — will revolutionize spaceflight, making Mars settlement and other ambitious exploration feats economically feasible.
The new, 408-foot-tall (124.4 meters) V3 (“Version 3”) variant is a key part of that vision. It’s the first Starship iteration capable of deep-space flight, according to SpaceX, and will carry astronauts to the lunar surface on NASA’s Artemis 4 mission in late 2028, if all goes to plan.
So last week’s suborbital test flight — the 12th overall for the Starship program — was a very big deal for the company. It went well in most respects. For example, Ship successfully deployed 20 dummy Starlink internet satellites, as well as two actual Starlinks equipped with cameras to image the vehicle’s heat shield in space. And the upper stage survived its reentry to Earth’s atmosphere in good shape, making a soft, controlled splashdown off the coast of Western Australia as planned.
Super Heavy was supposed to make a soft splashdown of its own, in the Gulf of Mexico. But the booster was unable to perform the engine burns needed for this controlled return and ended up “experiencing a hard splashdown” in the Gulf, as SpaceX wrote in a mission update.
The FAA deemed this result a mishap and is requiring the company to conduct an investigation into its cause.
“The FAA will oversee the SpaceX-led investigation, be involved in every step of the process, and approve SpaceX’s final report, including any corrective actions,” agency officials wrote in today’s update.
It’s unclear how long this investigation will take. But don’t bet on a significant delay, as SpaceX tends to work fast. For instance, an FAA grounding of the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket this past February lasted just four days.