The federal government is authorizing SpaceX to try for another test flight of its Starship rocket, two months after the last test flight ended with pieces of the rocket streaking over Florida and the Caribbean.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it conducted a comprehensive safety review after the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 launch on March 6, the breakup of which the FAA referred to as a “mishap.”
The FAA says it will verify that SpaceX implements all corrective actions.
The eighth test flight for SpaceX’s super heavy rocket launched from South Texas and was supposed to end with a controlled entry over the Indian Ocean.
Instead, the spacecraft came tumbling down and broke apart minutes into the flight. Debris was seen streaking the sky over Central Florida, the Bahamas, and islands in the Caribbean.
The FAA stopped flights at several airports, including Orlando International Airport, as a precaution.
The FAA said the new flight safety analysis for the next flight will expand the size of the hazard areas for both the United States and other countries. The new hazard area is almost double in size, covering 1,600 nautical miles, from Starbase, Texas, across Florida to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands.
The launch window will also need to be scheduled during non-peak air travel periods to keep airspace disruption to a minimum.
The FAA says SpaceX intends to reuse a previously launched super-heavy booster rocket for the first time with the next Starship launch.
SpaceX has not yet announced when the next Starship test flight will take place.