SpaceX’s Second Starship Launch- A Failure

On November 15, after the giant Starship rocket exploded during its first test flight in

April, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Elon Musk's SpaceX permission to launch the Starship rocket for the second time.

Lifting up around 8 a.m from the company's facility in Texas, Starship flew for more than seven minutes, successfully separating from the booster, before the rocket's onboard system deliberately destroyed the vehicle at the end of the flight.

In rockets, the flight termination system is a standard safety feature, which will destroy the vehicle if there is a problem or if it deviates from its course. The Starship appears to have been detonated at an altitude of approximately 148 kilometers or about 485,000 feet on the SpaceX webcast.

As SpaceX planned to fly Starship most of its way around Earth before it came back up in the atmosphere and dropped off Kauai's coast, this deliberate destruction was an early end to the flight test.

The Federal Aviation Administration declared it will preside over a “mishap” investigation into the flight, an established regulatory procedure before SpaceX can launch another Starship rocket. The FAA's investigation of the cause of the failure of the rocket, in particular when the vehicle was destroyed, is called the Mishap Investigation. Before the company can obtain a license for its next Starship launch, the regulator may require SpaceX to carry out corrective actions.