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FAA grounds SpaceX’s Starship after another launch mishap
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Another Starship launch, another Federal Aviation Administration-mandated grounding and mishap investigation that couldn’t come at a worse time as SpaceX attempts to court investors for what could be the largest IPO in history.
Key facts
- Another Starship launch, another Federal Aviation Administration-mandated grounding and mishap investigation that couldn’t come at a worse time as SpaceX attempts to court investors
- It took until Wednesday for the FAA to declare the Super Heavy anomaly a formal mishap, and that means Starship is grounded while SpaceX conducts an FAA-directed investigation to determine what went — This was Starship’s 12th launch, and marked the sixth time the FAA has grounded it in the past three years
- If SpaceX keeps causing delays to NASA's Moon mission timeline, the whole thing might explode in investors’ faces. ®
Summary
As they reported earlier this week, Friday’s launch of the latest iteration of Starship atop its Super Heavy booster started off well enough, but things went sideways during the booster’s return sequence. Starship reached space, but trouble with one of its Raptor engines forced SpaceX to cancel a planned in-space relight test, further delaying efforts to demonstrate controlled deorbit capability. It took until Wednesday for the FAA to declare the Super Heavy anomaly a formal mishap, and that means Starship is grounded while SpaceX conducts an FAA-directed investigation to determine what went wrong. This was Starship’s 12th launch, and marked the sixth time the FAA has grounded it in the past three years.