{"id":699764,"date":"2026-05-28T17:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/699764\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T17:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T17:23:13","slug":"starship-grounded-as-spacex-investigates-super-heavy-booster-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/699764\/","title":{"rendered":"Starship grounded as SpaceX investigates Super Heavy booster failure"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket is temporarily grounded as the commercial spaceflight company<\/a> conducts an investigation into its most recent test flight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, announced<\/a> May 27 that a “mishap” had occurred during the hourlong spaceflight<\/a> from South Texas.<\/p>\n

The world’s largest rocket got off the ground May 22 from South Texas on its 12th ever test flight since April 2023<\/a>. While the launch was regarded as mostly successful, the first-stage booster known as Super Heavy experienced a performance failure that resulted in an uncontrolled landing off the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n

The second stage vehicle, however, continued on and hit most of its planned objectives.<\/p>\n

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NASA released thousands of new photos taken during the Artemis II mission around the moon. The astronauts selected for the mission thoroughly documented the 10-day voyage, which included an April 6 lunar flyby as they traveled more than a quarter-million miles from Earth.<\/p>\n

(Provided by NASA)<\/p>\n

Here’s what to know about SpaceX’s investigation into the most recent Starship launch<\/a>, which it refers to as flight 12.<\/p>\n

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What happened on Starship flight 12?<\/p>\n

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk<\/a>‘s SpaceX last launched its Starship rocket May 22 from its Starbase company town and headquarters near the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

Powered by 33 of SpaceX’s Raptor-class engines, the booster provided the initial burst of thrust at liftoff before separating from the upper stage<\/a>\u00a0minutes after launch and making a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed in the United States under executive order as the Gulf of America.<\/p>\n

The upper stage had a much longer flight, using its own six Raptor engines to fly halfway around the world before\u00a0landing and exploding<\/a>\u00a0in the Indian Ocean. Along the way, Starship succeeded in deploying 20 mock versions of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites and two modified satellites that, in a major first,\u00a0imaged Starship<\/a>\u00a0while it climbed into space.<\/p>\n

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The SpaceX Starship spacecraft sits atop the Super Heavy Booster Tuesday, May 19 at launch pad 2 as preparations continue for the 12th test flight of the Starship rocket in Starbase, Texas.<\/p>\n

(Steve Nesius\/Reuters)FAA grounds Starship as SpaceX investigates Super Heavy mishap<\/p>\n

Because SpaceX once again pushed the performance of the Super Heavy booster, the company did not attempt to return and land it back at the launch site \u2013 as was last accomplished in March 2025.<\/p>\n

While the vehicle landed off the Gulf Coast as planned, SpaceX did acknowledge that the booster failed to reignite its engines during a procedure called a partial boostback burn. That resulted in Super Heavy making what SpaceX referred to as a “hard splashdown” in the gulf.<\/p>\n

Now, the FAA, which licenses commercial rocket launches, is requiring that SpaceX fully investigate what the agency has deemed a “mishap.”<\/p>\n

While it’s unclear when SpaceX would plan to launch Starship again, the rocket would be grounded until the investigation is completed.<\/p>\n

What is a mishap investigation?<\/p>\n

The FAA requires mishap investigations when something goes wrong \u2013 or not to plan \u2013 during a spaceflight.<\/p>\n

Even though the agency says the failure of the Super Heavy booster did not result in any damage or injuries, an investigation is meant to ensure SpaceX can determine what went wrong and implement “corrective actions.”<\/p>\n

Starship will be cleared to fly again when the federal agency approves SpaceX’s final report and determines that the vehicle can safely launch.<\/p>\n

What is Starship? World’s largest rocket bound for moon, Mars<\/p>\n

The flight test marked the debut of SpaceX’s third-generation prototype<\/a> of Starship. Standing at 407 feet tall when fully stacked, the new iteration of Starship \u2013 known as Version 3, or V3 \u2013 became the largest and most powerful rocket<\/a> SpaceX has ever launched.<\/p>\n

Similar to previous designs, the fully integrated Starship spacecraft is composed of both a 236-feet-tall lower-stage booster known as Super Heavy, as well as a 171-feet-tall upper stage simply called Starship.<\/p>\n

If all goes to plan, Starship Version 3 is due to become the rocket that finally reaches orbit. SpaceX is developing the prototype to be capable of refueling midflight in a complex process that requires two Starships equipped with docking adapters to meet in orbit to transfer propellant.<\/p>\n

The capability is necessary for Starship to reach distant destinations as SpaceX develops the launch vehicle to serve as a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis moon mission<\/a>s and to potentially take humans to Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FAA grounds Starship as SpaceX investigates flight 12 mishap<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket is temporarily grounded as the commercial spaceflight company conducts an investigation into its most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,254913,14897,254914,66,306,6888,13073,92746],"class_list":["post-699764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-commercial-rocket-launches","tag-federal-aviation-administration","tag-mishap-investigation","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spacex","tag-starship","tag-super-heavy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}