FAA orders SpaceX to investigate Starship booster mishap

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON, May 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ordered SpaceX to investigate why its Starship booster suffered a mishap and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico during a test flight last week, the agency said on Wednesday.

The FAA said it determined the SpaceX Starship Flight 12 launch on May 22 resulted in a mishap that involved its Super Heavy booster as it flew back to the Gulf of Mexico after stage separation.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FAA added there were no reports of injuries to members of the public or damage to public property.  The FAA said it will oversee the SpaceX-led investigation, be involved in every step of the process, and approve the company’s final report, including any corrective actions. 

SpaceX’s 12th test flight ​of a Starship prototype since 2023, and the first of its V3 iteration, was successful on most counts on Friday. It ⁠deployed a clutch of mock satellites and executed a controlled splashdown of the spacecraft in the Indian Ocean. But it failed to achieve a controlled landing ​of the Super Heavy booster, which tumbled into the Gulf.

The probe is designed to boost public safety, determine the cause of the mishap, and identify actions to prevent it from happening again, the FAA said.

The FAA will approve a return to flight of the Starship-Super Heavy vehicle after ensuring any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety. 

Starship is critical to lowering SpaceX’s launch costs, expanding its Starlink satellite business – its cash engine – and ‌supporting future undertakings such as space-based computing, deployment of orbital AI data-center satellites and human missions to the moon and potentially Mars.

The company has spent more than $15 billion ​developing what it hopes will become a fully reusable rocket capable of carrying far larger payloads than existing launch systems.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar, Paul Simao, Rod Nickel)