The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has authorized SpaceX to proceed with another test flight of its Starship prototype. This approval comes after the company identified the probable cause of a booster failure during a flight in May.

SpaceX indicated over the weekend that the next Starship flight could occur as early as this Thursday, July 16th. This will mark the second launch of the third-generation (V3) Starship. The company also stated that this mission will carry the first batch of third-generation Starlink satellites into space. Previously, Starship had only carried mock versions of these larger, more powerful internet satellites.

This upcoming test represents the second flight for the Starship system and its first as a publicly traded company. It aims to gauge market acceptance of the company's "fly, fail, fix" rocket development approach, which often concludes in dramatic fireballs or, as CEO Elon Musk has termed it, "rapid unscheduled disassembly." SpaceX completed its initial public offering on June 12th, listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It has since become one of the world's ten most valuable companies, raising a record-breaking sum of approximately $86 billion.

The first test flight of the V3 Starship on May 22nd was largely successful. The company's Super Heavy booster propelled the 407-foot-tall rocket into space. The upper stage then separated and deployed 20 satellite simulators, along with two modified Starlink satellites used to capture external imagery of the spacecraft.

The new-generation V3 booster was supposed to return to Earth and execute a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico. However, its engines failed to reignite correctly, resulting in the booster plunging into the sea.

According to both SpaceX and the FAA, the issue occurred at the moment of booster separation. In a post published last weekend, SpaceX explained that "subtle differences in engine start-up on the ship" caused the booster to rotate 90 degrees in the wrong direction. The company stated it has modified the engine start sequence to allow the booster to "more reliably flip in the intended direction" and has made booster improvements to "increase the reliability of re-ignition."

In a statement on Monday, the FAA said the most likely root cause of the Super Heavy booster failure was the "thermal effects on propulsion system components during the rocket's ascent" combined with an "erroneous engine alarm system setting." SpaceX's post noted that modifications have been made to Starship's engine alarm and termination system, which should reduce the likelihood of similar failures in the future.

Although the V3 Starship's first stage successfully deployed its test payload in May and simulated a landing in the Gulf of Mexico—a milestone previously difficult for SpaceX to achieve—one of the three Raptor engines, designed for the vacuum of space, malfunctioned during the process. SpaceX stated last weekend that it has implemented "multiple hardware and operational modifications" to prevent such issues from recurring.

During the next Starship test flight, the company will launch the first V3 Starlink satellites, which are designed to enhance the capacity and user speeds of the Starlink network. SpaceX plans to deploy 20 of these new satellites in this launch. They are designed to connect with the larger Starlink constellation "via high-capacity lasers" and are expected to burn up in the atmosphere approximately 20 minutes after deployment. Six of the satellites will be equipped with cameras to capture external images of the Starship.

Both the V3 Starship and Starlink versions are critical to SpaceX's future. In the lead-up to its IPO, Starlink was the only profitable segment of SpaceX's business. The company requires Starship to become a fully reusable rocket system to realize its ambitious plans, which include space-based data centers and interplanetary travel.