FAA closes investigation into April Starship launch

After months of investigations by both SpaceX and the FAA, both parties have finished going over all the data and have signed off on the root causes of Starship’s first launch. The FAA was the final one to do so and signed off on the plan SpaceX proposed to ensure Starship won’t fail again (in the same way at least).

FAA signs off on SpaceX’s mitigation plan

On Friday the FAA announced it closed out the mishap investigation of SpaceX’s first launch of its Starship rocket. The FAA looked over SpaceX’s report of its findings after the semi-failed launch and with some insight accepted the companies mitigation plan. SpaceX posted a rare update on its website detailing some of its findings and changes to the rocket.

The mitigation plan given to the FAA by SpaceX gave 63 corrective actions that will have to be closed out before Starship could launch again. Some of those actions included redesigns of the rocket and launch pad, additional design reviews, and additional testing on Starship’s automatic flight termination system.

This comes just days after the second Starship rocket was assembled down in Starbase, Texas, SpaceX’s home to Starship development. The launch provider’s founder, Elon Musk, shared after the successful stacking that “Starship is ready to launch.” However that isn’t the case just yet.

SpaceX’s previous Starship launch hit every objective the mission was assigned, if that objective was what Musk stated in a then Twitter Space just days before launch, “don’t blow up the pad.” Outside of that, getting great flight data, and proving a lot of the systems work, I mean sure, it was a great success.

Now SpaceX has its second rocket that includes the upgrades and changes it laid out to the FAA to help mitigate another failure. SpaceX also made upgrades to its ground infrastructure including a water suppression system and flame diverter to help reduce future damage to pad during liftoff.

However, after the launch of Starship’s first mission, the FAA was sued over its approval of the rocket’s launching from South Texas. That lawsuit is still being worked through the court system and we don’t plan on hearing anything new for some time.

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So does this mean SpaceX will launch soon?

The FAA was clear to state in its mishap closure that this did not mean SpaceX was cleared to launch. Those two items are not the same thing and the approval might take a little bit longer to get. SpaceX’s launch license from the FAA only gave them permission to launch once.

However, the launch license can be amended for additional launches. Now that the mishap investigation has been closed out, SpaceX must complete those 63 corrective actions before launch. Sadly we won’t know what all 63 are and what their status will be. We will just have to wait for the FAA’s launch license amendment and assume they were all taken care of then.

However, many of those actions could and most likely have already been put into place. Musk has talked about many times that there many changes put into Booster 9 and Ship 25 after the April launch. SpaceX also had plans to improve and upgrade parts of the orbital launch mount after the first launch no mater what condition it was left in.

So we’re talking about most likely weeks, not months to potentially see SpaceX get the nod from the FAA that it can launch. Now when will SpaceX be ready to launch Starship? That’s a good question.