The Federal Aviation Administration says SpaceX has not yet been approved for a second test flight of the Starship Super Heavy

Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday, that SpaceX is not yet clear to conduct another test flight of the Starship Super Heavy launch vehicle.

On Tuesday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claimed, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that he now owns, that “Starship is ready to launch, pending FAA approval.”

However, his aerospace and defense company did not meet the requirements of the Federal Aviation Administration to be able to fly again after an explosion occurred in April 2023 during the first test flight of this vehicle.

The spacecraft’s first launch saw the roughly 400-foot rocket fly for more than three minutes, but it lost several engines, caused massive damage to Earth’s infrastructure and failed to reach space after the rocket began to falter and was deliberately destroyed in space. air.

The accident left a hole in the ground, hurled concrete blocks into nearby tanks and other equipment, and affected the delicate environment that is home to some endangered wild animals. It also started a fire of about 4 acres on state park land.

The spacecraft launch “anomaly” led to an unfortunate investigation that will be overseen by the FAA – standard practice by the agency responsible for protecting the public during commercial space transportation launches and atmospheric reentries.

In a statement sent to CNBC on Wednesday night, the FAA said, “The SpaceX Starship accident investigation remains open. The FAA will not allow the Starship to be launched again until SpaceX implements corrective actions identified during the accident investigation and demonstrates compliance with all regulatory requirements.” . license modification process.

Ars Technica I first mentioned this. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, the FAA was asked to brief the Senate and House of Representatives Appropriations committees In their unfortunate report, before SpaceX has conducted any future launches of the Starship Super Heavy.

NASA currently relies solely on SpaceX to fly people from the United States into orbit. With its Starship program, SpaceX aims to move heavy scientific equipment into orbit, and to economically move larger quantities of cargo and people to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

the The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday Musk, who is the largest shareholder in SpaceX, took out a $1 billion loan from the company last year, the same month he was completing the acquisition of the social network Twitter.

The SpaceX CEO’s relationship with federal and state regulators and with some members of Congress is strained.

For example, Musk has violated Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements in recent years. The New Yorker reported that in December 2020, Musk paid SpaceX to disobey the agency’s orders and conduct a test flight of a rocket called SN8 on a date that the agency expressly forbade such activity. The SN8 missile exploded.

Recently, SpaceX conducted several tests of the new water deluge system at the Starship Super Heavy launch site in South Texas. The system aims to keep the company’s launch pad cool during launches.

However, SpaceX built and conducted tests for the deluge system, all without obtaining the environmental permits from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that are normally required to discharge industrial wastewater on site.