The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has cleared SpaceX to proceed with the ninth test flight of its Starship rocket. Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with two stages, Super Heavy and Ship. Both stages are fully and rapidly reusable. After taking a long look at the anomaly that occurred on Starship’s most recent mission, which launched on March 6, the FAA announced the decision on May 22. The first-stage booster of Starship, Super Heavy, performed successfully in SpaceX Starship Flight 8 and will be reused.

Flight 8 Investigation Leads to Expanded Safety Measures

According to the FAA officials, they conducted a thorough safety review of the Flight 8 mishap before authorizing SpaceX to resume launches. In that flight, while the Super Heavy booster executed a successful return to Starbase using the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms, the upper stage disintegrated less than 10 minutes after liftoff, raining debris over The Bahamas. This outcome — Super Heavy’s success and Ship’s failure , was a repeat of Flight 7, which lifted off in January. On that test mission, the Starship debris fall was centered on and around the Turks and Caicos Islands.

As a result of these failures, the FAA has expanded the designated Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) for Flight 9. Previously stretching 885 nautical miles, the new AHA now covers approximately 1,600 nautical miles eastward from Starbase, Texas, including regions over the Straits of Florida, The Bahamas, and Turks & Caicos. To limit the disruption to air traffic, the FAA has also mandated that the launch take place during off-peak hours.

Reusability and expected liftoff

In Flight 9, the Super Heavy booster from a previous mission (Flight 7) is going be reused. This step highlights SpaceX’s commitment to rapid reusability.

SpaceX has recently unveiled the target date for Flight 9 launch. It is scheduled to launch no earlier than Tuesday, May 27, at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) from SpaceX’s Starbase test site near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas.