For the third time in 11 months, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating a flight of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket.Starship launched for the third time ever on Thursday (March 14), roaring into the skies from SpaceX’s Starbase website in South Texas. The corporate aimed to convey each of Starship’s components — its first-stage Tremendous Heavy booster and its Starship higher stage — right down to Earth for ocean landings, however each automobiles ended up breaking up within the ambiance.The check flight due to this fact qualifies as a mishap, and the FAA needs to know what occurred. The company introduced this morning (March 15) that it’ll oversee a SpaceX-led investigation into Thursday’s occasions.Associated: Relive SpaceX Starship’s third flight check in breathtaking photosThe 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship, which SpaceX is creating to hold individuals and cargo to the moon and Mars, flew for the primary time in April 2023, on a check flight that lasted simply 4 minutes.It took to the skies once more in November, notching a number of vital milestones, together with a profitable stage separation. However that second trial mission ended after simply eight minutes.The FAA oversaw SpaceX investigations into each of these flights. The primary probe recognized 63 corrective actions that the corporate wanted to take earlier than launching once more, and the second discovered 17 required fixes.The quantity will possible be decrease nonetheless for flight quantity three, given how a lot progress Starship made. For instance, Tremendous Heavy aced its “boostback” burn after separating from the higher stage, although the enormous booster did not execute its touchdown burn correctly and broke aside about 1,515 ft (462 meters) above the Gulf of Mexico.The Starship higher stage reached orbital velocity and hit its correct “coast” trajectory, on its method to a deliberate splashdown within the Indian Ocean. The automobile was rolling a bit because it reentered Earth’s ambiance, nevertheless, and broke aside about 50 minutes after launch.It is unclear when the fourth Starship check flight will happen; the FAA won’t take into account granting a launch license till the present mishap investigation is over and SpaceX has applied the required corrective actions, no matter these find yourself being. However it’s secure to imagine that SpaceX shall be able to fly when it will get the inexperienced mild.”Right this moment, we do have 4 ships and 4 Tremendous Heavy boosters constructed, with extra coming off the manufacturing line as our star manufacturing unit continues to develop,” Siva Bharadvaj, an area operations engineer at SpaceX, stated throughout a webcast of Thursday’s launch. “These automobiles are slated for future flight checks identical to in the present day’s,” he added. “In actual fact, simply this week, we static-fired our subsequent ship that is planning to fly and count on to check the booster as quickly because the launch mount is free from in the present day’s flight check.”