SpaceX and Blue Origin to investigate this week’s large-scale missile tests, FAA says

The Federal Aviation Administration is asking Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to investigate what went wrong in their respective mega-rocket test flights this week.

The regulator said both companies should do what is known as an “accident investigation”. These probes involve the companies and the FAA working together to figure out 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 last.

In the case of SpaceX, there was an explosion during the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket system, which launched from Boca Chica, Texas on Thursday. Moss he wrote on X that the Starship itself became over-pressurized due to excess gas as it ascended into space, and ultimately exploded. The company officer explanation on its website it says that the interior of the ship caught fire.

The destruction of Starship created a debris field that lit up the sky over the Turks and Caicos Islands, prompting the FAA to slow and even divert some flights in nearby airspace due to low fuel levels. There have been no reports of injuries, according to the FAA, but the regulator said it is working with SpaceX to “confirm reports of damage to public property in Turks and Caicos.”

SpaceX and the FAA already appear to be at odds over a particular detail of the explosion. The FAA has technically activated what’s known as a “Debris Response Area,” which the administration says it only does if pieces of the spacecraft fall outside the danger zones defined before a launch. SpaceX insists on its website that “(a)ll surviving pieces of debris fell into the designated danger zone.”

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 managed to get into orbit, but the booster exploded on its way back for an attempted landing on a drone ship at sea.

The FAA says it is “aware that an anomaly occurred during the Blue Origin mission,” and that no injuries or damage to public property have been reported.