FAA finds 17 fixes for SpaceX’s Starship
Federal regulators investigating what went wrong with the second Starship flight that exploded over South Texas in November identified 17 corrective actions the company must make before launching again. They include hardware redesigns, operational changes and additional fire protection.
The findings do not mean the company has approval to fly again. SpaceX must fix the issues with its Super Heavy rocket and Starship spacecraft, and it needs to receive a modified launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration before it can plan a third flight of the world’s most powerful rocket.
During the launch on Nov. 18 that sparked the review, all 33 of the Super Heavy rocket engines ignited and burned for their full duration. Then the rocket separated from the Starship spacecraft using a new hot-stage technique that fired Starship’s engines while it was still attached to the rocket.
Super Heavy was supposed to land in the Gulf of Mexico. It ignited 13 of its 33 engines to return for the landing, but several engines began shutting down and one engine “failed energetically,” SpaceX said. The booster ultimately blew up more than 31⁄2 minutes into the flight when the rocket was about 55 miles above the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX said in an update released Monday.
Meanwhile, the Starship spacecraft successfully lit its six engines and began traveling toward its intended landing site off the coast of Hawaii. It began venting liquid oxygen propellant as planned, but a leak developed that led to a fire. Communications were lost between the spacecraft’s flight computers.
The onboard flight termination system blew up the spacecraft when it was roughly 93 miles above the Earth, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX led the mishap investigation, which was overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Of the 17 corrective actions, 10 were for the Starship spacecraft and seven were for the Super Heavy rocket. It’s not clear how long the changes will take, but the company said in a statement that the “second flight test of Starship and Super Heavy achieved a number of important milestones. … More Starships are ready to fly, putting flight hardware in a flight environment to learn as quickly as possible.”