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The launch of the SpaceX Starship V3 appeared to go according to plan. It launched last Friday, conducted a mock satellite deployment and returned to Earth. Based on the launch stream, everything appeared to go according to plan. It turns out that this wasn’t the case, as the FAA has launched an investigation, and the Starship V3 is grounded until the investigation concludes.
Per the FAA, the mishap occurred on the back end of the launch when the Starship V3’s boosters fell back to the Gulf of Mexico. The boosters fell pretty hard into what the FAA calls a “hazard area.” This caused several airport departure delays along with five airborne delay events, which is fancy FAA speak that means airplanes had to fly a holding pattern until things calmed down.
SpaceX is required to conduct a “mishap investigation.” The FAA is overseeing that investigation and must approve SpaceX’s final report, including corrective actions, before SpaceX can conduct another Starship V3 launch.
The incident comes as SpaceX faces more potential scrutiny after it filed last week for what could be the largest ever initial public offering. The IPO could value the company at $1.75 trillion, enough to make CEO Elon Musk the first-ever trillionaire. But it also opens the company — which houses the internet provider Starlink, Grok-maker xAI and X (formerly known as Twitter) — to the prying eyes and sensitive judgment of Wall Street investors.
An unexpectedly harsh return to Earth
You can see the incident as part of SpaceX’s live stream of the launch, and SpaceX details it on Flight 12’s mission tracker webpage. “Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster performed a directional flip maneuver and attempted its boostback burn,” SpaceX says. “It was unable to light all planned engines and performed a partial boostback burn that ended early.”
There isn’t much drama in the footage, as the Super Heavy booster splashes down into the water without slowing much. The rest of the Starship V3’s mission went off without a hitch, including its controlled descent into the Indian Ocean several hours later.
Not a rare occurrence for SpaceX
SpaceX is a frequent flier in the FAA’s mishap investigation logs. The Starship and Super Heavy boosters alone have triggered seven such investigations so far, and four of them required corrective actions before the Starship and Super Heavy could fly again. One of those four required 17 corrective actions by itself. The Falcon 9 rocket, which launched SpaceX and other companies into orbit 165 times in 2025, was grounded in February 2026 pending another FAA investigation.
The Starship V3 is slated to be an important spacecraft for SpaceX. It’s penciled in as the craft taking humans to the moon during the Artemis IV mission, which is scheduled to be the first moon landing humans have conducted since 1972. It’ll also be responsible for deploying the Starlink V3 satellites that are expected to offer gigabit internet connection speeds.
Given the result of past inquiries, the FAA investigation is unlikely to cause enough drama to impact those plans or SpaceX’s IPO.
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