The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to investigate what went wrong on their respective mega-rocket test flights this week.
The regulator said both companies must perform what’s known as a “mishap investigation.” These probes involve the companies and the FAA working together to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong, and take corrective action. In both cases, the regulator will have to sign off on the companies before those rockets can fly again. It’s not immediately clear how long that will take.
In SpaceX’s case, there was an explosion during the seventh test-flight of its Starship rocket system, which launched from Boca Chica, Texas on Thursday. Musk wrote on X that the Starship itself became over-pressurized due to excess gas as it ascended into space, and it ultimately exploded. The company’s official explanation on its website says the inside of the ship caught fire.
Starship’s destruction created a debris field that lit up the skies over the islands of Turks and Caicos, prompting the FAA to slow and even divert some flights in the nearby airspace as a result of low fuel levels. There are no reports of injuries, according to the FAA, but the regulator said it’s working with SpaceX to “confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos.”
SpaceX and the FAA already seem to be at odds on one particular detail about the explosion. The FAA technically activated what’s known as a “Debris Response Area,” which the administration says it only does if pieces of the spacecraft falls outside of hazard areas that are defined prior to a launch. SpaceX insists on its website that “[a]ny surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.”
Hours before SpaceX’s rocket launch, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida for the first time ever. The upper stage of the New Glenn rocket successfully made it into orbit, but the booster exploded on its way back down for an attempted landing on a drone ship at sea.
The FAA says it is “aware an anomaly occurred during the Blue Origin” mission, and that no injuries or public property damage have been reported.