{"id":44230,"date":"2025-05-23T23:15:36","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T15:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/faa-airplanes-should-stay-far-away-from-spacexs-next-starship-launch\/"},"modified":"2025-05-23T23:15:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T15:15:36","slug":"faa-airplanes-should-stay-far-away-from-spacexs-next-starship-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/faa-airplanes-should-stay-far-away-from-spacexs-next-starship-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"FAA: Airplanes should stay far away from SpaceX\u2019s next Starship launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light Thursday for SpaceX to launch the next test flight of its Starship mega-rocket as soon as next week, following two consecutive failures earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The failures set back SpaceX\u2019s Starship program by several months. The company aims to get the rocket\u2019s development back on track with the upcoming launch, Starship\u2019s ninth full-scale test flight since its debut in April 2023. Starship is central to SpaceX\u2019s long-held ambition to send humans to Mars and is the vehicle NASA has selected to land astronauts on the Moon under the umbrella of the government\u2019s Artemis program.<\/p>\n

In a statement Thursday, the FAA said SpaceX is authorized to launch the next Starship test flight, known as Flight 9, after finding the company \u201cmeets all of the rigorous safety, environmental and other licensing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not confirmed a target launch date for the next launch of Starship, but warning notices for pilots and mariners to steer clear of hazard areas in the Gulf of Mexico suggest the flight might happen as soon as the evening of Tuesday, May 27. The rocket will lift off from Starbase, Texas, SpaceX\u2019s privately owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

This will be the third flight of SpaceX\u2019s upgraded Block 2, or Version 2, Starship rocket. The first two flights of Starship Block 2\u2014in January and March\u2014did not go well. On both occasions, the rocket\u2019s upper stage shut down its engines prematurely and the vehicle lost control, breaking apart in the upper atmosphere and spreading debris near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Debris from Starship falls back into the atmosphere after Starship Flight 8 in this view over Hog Cay, Bahamas.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n GeneDoctorB via X<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Investigators determined the cause of the January failure was a series of fuel leaks and fires in the ship\u2019s aft compartment. The leaks were most likely triggered by vibrations that were more intense than anticipated, SpaceX said before Starship\u2019s most recent flight in March. SpaceX has not announced the cause of the March failure, although the circumstances were similar to the mishap in January.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight,\u201d the agency said. \u201cThe FAA will verify SpaceX implements all corrective actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flight safety<\/h2>\n

The flight profile for the next Starship launch will largely be a repeat of what SpaceX hoped to accomplish on the ill-fated tests earlier this year. If all goes according to plan, the rocket\u2019s upper stage, or ship, will travel halfway around the world from Starbase, reaching an altitude of more than 100 miles before reentering the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. A little more than an hour after liftoff, the ship will aim for a controlled splashdown in the ocean northwest of Australia.<\/p>\n

Apart from overcoming the problems that afflicted the last two launches, one of the most important objectives for this flight is to test the performance of Starship\u2019s heat shield. Starship Block 2 includes improved heat shield materials that could do better at protecting the ship from the superheated temperatures of reentry and, ultimately, make it easier to reuse the vehicle. The problems on the last two Starship test flights prevented the rocket from reaching the point where its heat shield could be tested.<\/p>\n

Starship Block 2 also features redesigned flaps to better control the vehicle during its descent through the atmosphere. This version of Starship also has larger propellant tanks and reconfigured fuel feed lines for the ship\u2019s six Raptor engines.<\/p>\n

The FAA\u2019s approval for Starship Flight 9 comes with some stipulations. The agency is expanding the size of hazard areas in the United States and in other countries based on an updated \u201cflight safety analysis\u201d from SpaceX and because SpaceX will reuse a previously flown first-stage booster\u2014called Super Heavy\u2014for the first time.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

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The aircraft hazard area for Starship Flight 9 extends approximately 1,600 nautical miles to the east from Starbase, Texas.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Federal Aviation Administration<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

This flight-safety analysis takes into account the outcomes of previous flights, including accidents, population exposure risk, the probability of vehicle failure, and debris propagation and behavior, among other considerations. \u201cThe FAA uses this and other data to determine and implement measures to mitigate public risk,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n

All of this culminated in the FAA\u2019s \u201creturn to flight determination,\u201d which the agency says is based on public safety. The FAA\u2019s primary concern with commercial space activity is ensuring rocket launches don\u2019t endanger third parties. The agency also requires that SpaceX maintain at least $500 million in liability insurance to cover claims resulting from the launch and flight of Starship Flight 9, the same requirement the FAA levied for previous Starship test flights.<\/p>\n

For the next launch, the FAA will establish an aircraft hazard area covering approximately 1,600 nautical miles extending eastward from Starbase, Texas, and through the Straits of Florida, including the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. This is an extension of the 885-nautical-mile hazard area the FAA established for the test flight in March. In order to minimize disruption to commercial and private air traffic, the FAA is requiring the launch window for Starship Flight 9 to be scheduled during \u201cnon-peak transit periods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The size of FAA-mandated airspace closures can expand or shrink based on the reliability of the launch vehicle. The failures of Starship earlier this year raised the probability of vehicle failure in the flight-safety analysis for Starship Flight 9, according to the FAA.<\/p>\n

The expanded hazard area will force the closure of more than 70 established air routes across the Gulf of Mexico and now includes the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The FAA anticipates this will affect more than 175 flights, almost all of them on international connecting routes. For airline passengers traveling through this region, this will mean an average flight delay of approximately 40 minutes, and potentially up to two hours, the FAA said.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

If SpaceX can reel off a series of successful Starship flights, the hazard areas will likely shrink in size. This will be important as SpaceX ramps up the Starship launch cadence. The FAA recently approved SpaceX to increase its Starship flight rate from five per year to 25 per year.<\/p>\n

The agency said it is in \u201cclose contact and collaboration\u201d with other nations with territory along or near Starship\u2019s flight path, including the United Kingdom, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba.<\/p>\n

Status report<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, SpaceX\u2019s hardware for Starship Flight 9 appears to be moving closer to launch. Engineers test-fired the Super Heavy booster, which SpaceX previously launched and recovered in January, last month on the launch pad in South Texas. On May 12, SpaceX fired the ship\u2019s six Raptor engines for 60 seconds on a test stand near Starbase.<\/p>\n

After the test-firing, ground crews rolled the ship back to the Starship production site a few miles away, only to return the vehicle to the test stand Wednesday for unspecified testing. SpaceX is expected to roll the ship back to the production site again before the end of the week.<\/p>\n

The final steps before launch will involve separately transporting the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage from the production site to the launch pad. There, SpaceX will stack the ship on top of the booster. Once the two pieces are stacked together, the rocket will stand 404 feet (123.1 meters) tall.<\/p>\n

If SpaceX moves forward with a launch attempt next Tuesday evening, the long-range outlook from the National Weather Service calls for a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light Thursday for SpaceX to launch the next test flight of its Starship mega-rocket as soon as next week, following two consecutive failures earlier this year. The failures set back SpaceX\u2019s Starship program by several months. The company aims to get the rocket\u2019s development back on track with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[291,1656,25,316,739,317,1100],"class_list":["post-44230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-federal-aviation-administration","tag-launch","tag-spacex","tag-starbase","tag-starship","tag-starship-flight-9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}