FAA clears SpaceX for another Starship test flight after explosion in January
SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster is seen on the launch pad, without the Starship atop, as it is prepared for launch from the company’s Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. Feb. 27, 2025.
Joe Skipper | Reuters
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has attained authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly its massive Starship rocket once again, the space regulator announced Friday.
The Starship rocket broke up during the company’s seventh test flight in January. The explosion caused debris to rain down over Turks and Caicos, and forced several commercial flights to be diverted or delayed, CNBC previously reported.
The FAA granted the modified license to SpaceX, which has a $350 billion private market valuation, even though the company has yet to complete its mishap investigation, required after the January explosion. The space regulator has previously authorized flights by companies including SpaceX and Rocket Lab while mishap investigations were still underway, a spokesperson told CNBC by email.
Last year, the FAA fined SpaceX $633,009 in civil penalties for what it alleged were safety and procedural violations in the lead-up to two 2023 launches. SpaceX was also fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting waters in Texas in violation of the Clean Water Act.
After those fines, Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” but never filed a complaint.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, contributed nearly $300 million to help propel President Donald Trump back to the White House, and is now a central figure in the administration.
Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and the owner of social media company X, leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is implementing draconian staffing and budget cuts across the federal government, and targeting regulatory agencies that oversee Musk’s businesses.
Orange balls of light fly across the sky as debris from a SpaceX rocket launched in Texas is spotted over Turks and Caicos Islands on Jan. 16, 2025.
Marcus Haworth@marcusahaworth | Marcus Haworth Via Reuters
The role has afforded Musk and his DOGE staffers unprecedented access to federal computer systems and data including within the FAA. SpaceX has been selected to help overhaul the FAA’s air traffic control system, Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously announced.
Senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., sent a letter on Friday to FAA’s acting administrator Chris Rocheleau, raising concerns about conflicts of interest.
SpaceX did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Starship, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched, is critical to SpaceX’s ambitions. When it is stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 403 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter. SpaceX has flown the full Starship rocket system on seven spaceflight tests so far since April 2023.
The company wrote in a social media post that it aims to conduct its eighth Starship test flight as soon as Monday, March 3.
Firefly’s CEO Jason Kim reacts during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., August 7, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Last week’s liftoff also coincided with President Donald Trump‘s “space superiority” executive order, signed on Friday, that aims to create a permanent U.S. base on the moon.
Investors have also gained more clarity on the future of NASA following a whirlwind drama since Trump won the election.
Last week, the Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator more than a year after he was first nominated to the position.
Trump withdrew the nomination from the Elon Musk ally earlier this year amid a public fallout, but renominated Isaacman in November.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was tapped to temporarily run the space agency in the interim.
Google parent Alphabet on Monday announced it will acquire Intersect, a data center and energy infrastructure company, for $4.75 billion in cash in addition to the assumption of debt.
Alphabet said Intersect’s operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster.
In recent years, Google has been embroiled in a fierce competition with artificial intelligence rivals, namely OpenAI, which kick-started the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments to build out the data centers it needs to meet growing demand for its technology.
With its acquisition of Intersect, Google is looking to keep up.
“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement.
Google already had a minority stake in Intersect from a funding round that was announced last December. In a release at the time, Intersect said its strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate aimed to develop gigawatts of data center capacity across the U.S., including a $20 billion investment in renewable power infrastructure by the end of the decade.
Alphabet said Monday that Intersect will work closely with Google’s technical infrastructure team, including on the companies’ co-located power site and data center in Haskell County, Texas. Google previously announced a $40 billion investment in Texas through 2027, which includes new data center campuses in the state’s Haskell and Armstrong counties.
Intersect’s operating and in-development assets in California and its existing operating assets in Texas are not part of the acquisition, Alphabet said. Intersect’s existing investors including TPG Rise Climate, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners will support those assets, and they will continue to operate as an independent company.
Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect is expected to close in the first half of 2026, but it is still subject to customary closing conditions.
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