SpaceX’s Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, must stay grounded until the company takes dozens of corrective actions after the rocket’s April debut ended in an explosion, federal regulators said on Friday.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it closed its investigation into SpaceX’s failed debut of Starship. The agency is requiring SpaceX to take 63 corrective steps and to apply for a modified FAA license before launching again.
FAA official said multiple problems led to the April launch explosion, which sent pieces of concrete and metal hurtling for thousands of feet (meters) and created a plume of pulverized concrete that spread for miles (kilometers) around.
The SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, said in the accident’s aftermath that he improved the 394ft (120-meter) rocket, which is nearly as long as three passenger jets, and strengthened the launch pad. A new Starship is on the redesigned pad, awaiting liftoff. It will fly empty, as before.
During the initial test flight, the rocketship had to be destroyed after it tumbled out of control just a few minutes after liftoff from Boca Chica Beach in Texas. The wreckage crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX said fuel leaks during ascent caused fires to erupt at the tail of the rocket, severing connection with the main flight computer and leading to a loss of control.
The blast immediately caught the attention of regulators, who were required by law to open an investigation into the matter, and environmentalists who had already argued for a more in-depth study of potential hazards to public safety and wildlife.
“They contemplated debris from these launches, but not part of the launchpad itself being blown out miles away and scattered across the landscape,” Jared Margolis, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in the aftermath of the explosion.
SpaceX, which had previously warned that the chances of success were low, described the mission in positive terms. That flight “provided numerous lessons learned”, the company said in a statement.
The FAA, which regulates launch site safety, closed its review on Friday of SpaceX’s technical investigation into the launch mishap, citing “multiple root causes” of the failure. In its review, the agency also listed 63 corrective actions the company must undertake before it launches the rocket again.
“The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica,” the agency said, referring to SpaceX’s sprawling Starship launch site in south Texas.
The closure of the inquiry brings SpaceX closer to getting Starship in space for the first time – a major, long-sought testing milestone before the company can use the resuable rocket for commercial satellite missions and human landings on the moon’s surface for Nasa. Musk’s ultimate goal is to build a fleet of Starships to carry people and supplies to Mars.