{"id":334952,"date":"2026-05-27T21:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/334952\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T21:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T21:23:07","slug":"spacexs-starship-rockets-are-grounded-pending-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/334952\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX\u2019s Starship rockets are grounded pending investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By MARCIA DUNN<\/p>\n

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 SpaceX Starship launches<\/a> are on hold pending an investigation into last week\u2019s test flight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration<\/a> announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket\u2019s first-stage booster.<\/p>\n

Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk\u2019s biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) \u2014 SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1611,2046,14284,7922,11482,138439,74,76,75,18174,138438,22643],"class_list":["post-334952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-elon-musk","tag-faa","tag-federal-aviation-administration","tag-mars","tag-moon","tag-rocket-booster","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-spacex","tag-starship","tag-test-flight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}