FAA clears SpaceX for next Starship test flight

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the country’s civil-aviation regulator, has cleared SpaceX to fly Starship prototypes again, and the next test flight could take place as soon as this Thursday, July 16. It would be the company’s first test flight since its June IPO on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, where SpaceX raised nearly $86 billion and became one of the ten most valuable companies in the world. The flight will test market appetite for SpaceX’s fly, fail, fix approach to rocket development that often ends in fireballs — what CEO Elon Musk calls “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The clearance follows an investigation into the Super Heavy booster failure during the May 22 test. That launch was largely successful: the 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. But when the third-generation booster attempted a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico, its engines failed to properly re-ignite, and it instead plummeted into the water below.

SpaceX said slight differences in engine startup on the ship caused the booster to turn 90 degrees in the wrong direction, and the company has since adjusted the startup sequence so the booster can flip more reliably in the desired direction and improve re-light reliability. The FAA said Monday that the most probable root causes were heat effects on propulsion system components during the rocket’s ascent and erroneous engine alarm system settings. The May flight also cost SpaceX one of the three Raptor engines built for the vacuum of space, and the company says it has made several hardware and operational modifications to prevent a repeat.

The upcoming flight will carry the first third-generation Starlink satellites to space, marking a shift from the dummy payloads Starship has carried before. SpaceX plans to deploy 20 of these new V3 satellites, which are designed to connect to the broader constellation via high-capacity lasers before burning up in the atmosphere roughly 20 minutes after deployment. Six of them will be equipped with cameras to photograph the Starship exterior.

Why it matters

The V3 versions of Starship and Starlink are central to SpaceX’s future: Starlink was the only profitable part of the company’s business before its IPO, and SpaceX needs Starship to achieve its plans for space-based data centers and interplanetary travel.