SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket on Friday after a first try was scrubbed due to technical issues a day earlier.

A 90-minute launch window opened at 6:30 p.m. ET, and the flight took off at that time from SpaceX’s facility in Starbase, Texas.

The test flight of Starship V3, with all its revised systems, was a key event for SpaceX ahead of a public market debut after the company publicly disclosed its IPO prospectus earlier this week. Elon Musk’s aerospace and defense company is expected to raise around $75 billion in an IPO next month, after being valued at $1.25 trillion in February, when it merged with xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman flew to Starbase before the launch, and appeared in a flight suit with SpaceX employees on a livestream video to tout the achievements.

Before leading the space agency, Isaacman paid to lead two private SpaceX flights, in 2021 and 2024, commanding crews on multiday trips around the Earth, forging a close relationship with Musk.

During the test flight on Friday, SpaceX successfully deployed dummy satellites into orbit, and beamed live video of its rockets’ operations from space. However, the company didn’t achieve some of its Starship goals. The company missed propulsion targets it must hit in order to know its revamped rocket and engines are ready to conduct safe flights to orbit and back.

The Superheavy first stage that powers the initial ascent of Starship failed immediately after its separation. Anomalies then occurred during an engine relight sequence, destroying a significant part of the Superheavy aft and resulting in a loss of control.

After flying at a speed of Mach 7, Starship lit two of its engines before splashing down vertically in the Indian Ocean. It then tipped over and exploded after the nose of the rocket hit the water, an expected outcome.

SpaceX said in its IPO filing on Wednesday that Starship “is designed to deliver 100 metric tons to Earth’s orbit in a fully reusable configuration while enabling rapid turnaround times akin to commercial aviation.” It’s the 12th test flight for Starship.

The largest rocket ever built or flown, Starship is also key to SpaceX’s ability to bolster its Starlink wireless internet service business. The company said it plans to launch more satellites into orbit to add to its constellation, and provide stronger wireless internet to customers even in dense urban areas.

Last year, SpaceX launched over 3,000 satellites on 122 Falcon 9 rocket missions. The Starship was designed to carry and release more satellites per trip than the smaller Falcon 9.

The system is comprised of the Starship upper stage vehicle, Super Heavy booster and Raptor engines. The upper stage is meant to be fully reusable, and NASA is relying on SpaceX’s Starship to land astronauts back on the moon in 2028.

Friday’s test flight is SpaceX’s first for Starship in seven months, following a string of explosions and other setbacks in early 2025 that disrupted air travel due to falling debris. The company carried and successfully deployed mock Starlink satellites during the test flight on Friday, but no people or customer cargo.

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SpaceX is readying for the 12th test flight of its massive Starship rocket on Thursday, a landmark launch ahead of the company’s IPO that’s expected next month.

The launch will represent the debut of Starship V3, which “is designed to deliver 100 metric tons to Earth’s orbit in a fully reusable configuration while enabling rapid turnaround times akin to commercial aviation,” SpaceX said in its IPO prospectus on Wednesday.

A 90-minute launch window is set to open at 6:30 p.m. ET, and the event can be viewed by webcast. The launch could be delayed by weather or other disruptions.

Elon Musk’s reusable rocket maker has spent more than $15 billion on its Starship program, according to Wednesday’s filing. The company says Starship is key to launching more satellites into orbit to build out its Starlink constellation at a faster pace than it’s been able to using Falcon 9 rockets. Starlink delivers wireless internet services to consumers, businesses and government agencies.

The latest version of the Starship rocket will be launching from a newly designed pad at SpaceX’s facility in Starbase, Texas, an official company town previously known as Boca Chica.

The test flight will likely mark the company’s last chance to dazzle investors with a Starship launch before shares hit the public market. Last year, SpaceX’s space segment generated revenue of $4.1 billion and recorded an operating loss of $657 million.

The company counts on Starlink for a hefty amount of revenue and all of its profits. The connectivity unit, which consists mostly of Starlink, brought in sales of $11.4 billion and operating income of $4.4 billion in 2025. That accounted for 61% of the company’s total sales last year, and 69% in the first quarter.

About its space business, SpaceX said in its prospectus that its “growth strategy depends on our ability to increase our launch cadence and payload capacity, which is dependent on the successful development of Starship at scale.”

Musk has long held the grandiose goal of colonizing Mars, using the Starship rocket to lift cargo and as many as 100 people at a time into orbit.

NASA is also betting that Starship will serve as the lander to carry its astronauts to the moon on its Artemis IV mission, currently slated for early 2028. The mission would mark U.S. astronauts’ first trip back to the moon in more than half a century.

Starship V3 stands 408 feet tall when fully stacked, and features new engines that should make it a stronger rocket, with 18 million pounds of thrust. The company will carry mock Starlink satellites during the test flight but no astronauts or other cargo.

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A SpaceX Starship rocket on Wednesday exploded at the Starbase facility in Texas during routine testing in preparation for a launch flight, according to local authorities and live stream footage.

The rocket “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase” at 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media, noting “a safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.”

Local authorities said that Starship “suffered a catastrophic failure and exploded,” with no injuries reported at the time of writing and an investigation is now underway. Live stream footage of Starbase showed the rocket burst into flame, shooting a large fireball into the sky.

Another Starship launch was expected to take place by the end of this month.

It’s been a tempestuous ride for Elon Musk’s mammoth Starship, after three flight launch attempts devolved in fiery glory and air-traffic stopping debris this year to date. Notably, the rocket model has taken off successfully in previous instances, but its vast scale — standing 120 meters (394 feet) tall when factoring in the Super Heavy booster — has raised concerns over its overall reliability and requirements for orbital refueling once in flight.

Yet Musk has clinched his hopes on Starship as the key vehicle for both NASA’s third and fourth Artemis missions — part of a broader plan to return humans to the Moon — due to take place over 2027-2028. The rocket is also set to play a role in launching the Starlab private space station in the transition to commercial space orbiting labs once the International Space Station retires after 2030.

Critically, Starship is also central to Musk’s — and former ally U.S. President Donald Trump’s — broader ambitions to colonize Mars. The rocket is set to ferry Optimus robots to the red planet by the end of 2026, with Musk in March saying, “If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely.”

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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has attained authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly its massive Starship rocket once again, the space regulator announced Friday.

The Starship rocket broke up during the company’s seventh test flight in January. The explosion caused debris to rain down over Turks and Caicos, and forced several commercial flights to be diverted or delayed, CNBC previously reported.

The FAA granted the modified license to SpaceX, which has a $350 billion private market valuation, even though the company has yet to complete its mishap investigation, required after the January explosion. The space regulator has previously authorized flights by companies including SpaceX and Rocket Lab while mishap investigations were still underway, a spokesperson told CNBC by email.

Last year, the FAA fined SpaceX $633,009 in civil penalties for what it alleged were safety and procedural violations in the lead-up to two 2023 launches. SpaceX was also fined by the Environmental Protection Agency for polluting waters in Texas in violation of the Clean Water Act.

After those fines, Musk threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach” but never filed a complaint.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, contributed nearly $300 million to help propel President Donald Trump back to the White House, and is now a central figure in the administration.

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and the owner of social media company X, leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which is implementing draconian staffing and budget cuts across the federal government, and targeting regulatory agencies that oversee Musk’s businesses.

The role has afforded Musk and his DOGE staffers unprecedented access to federal computer systems and data including within the FAA. SpaceX has been selected to help overhaul the FAA’s air traffic control system, Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy previously announced.

Senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., sent a letter on Friday to FAA’s acting administrator Chris Rocheleau, raising concerns about conflicts of interest.

SpaceX did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Starship, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched, is critical to SpaceX’s ambitions. When it is stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 403 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter. SpaceX has flown the full Starship rocket system on seven spaceflight tests so far since April 2023.

The company wrote in a social media post that it aims to conduct its eighth Starship test flight as soon as Monday, March 3.

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that SpaceX’s Starship rocket is grounded until the company and regulator complete an investigation into the midflight failure of the most recent test flight, which forced airlines to divert flights.

The regulator noted in a statement that, while there have been “no reports of public injury,” it has received “reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos” islands in the Caribbean.

SpaceX must complete the investigation and put in place any required corrective actions before the FAA issues the company with a new license to launch Starship again.

The FAA diverted and delayed dozens of commercial airline flights — including several operated by American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Delta Air Lines — after the Starship rocket exploded and rained down debris minutes after launching on Thursday.

SpaceX said in a statement that it believes a fire in the vehicle led to Starship breaking apart. Videos posted on social media by people in the region showed the rocket detonating in space.

Notably, the FAA says it activated a “Debris Response Area” to warn aircraft of debris falling “outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas.”

Before rocket launches, the FAA publishes “Aircraft Hazard Areas” that tell pilots where debris may fall if something goes wrong midlaunch.

SpaceX initially published a statement on its website Thursday that Starship debris fell “into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas,” seemingly contradicting the FAA’s explanation for why a “Debris Response Area” was activated.

As of Friday morning, the latest SpaceX statement did not include that specific language. The company’s website said more broadly that “any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area” after the failure.

The FAA, in response to CNBC’s request for clarification on whether Starship debris landed outside the predefined hazard area, reiterated that its “information is preliminary and subject to change.” SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

SpaceX launched the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost communication with the upper stage of the rocket that continues on into space.

The company’s webcast showed data stopped transmitting from Starship about nine minutes into the launch.

“We can confirm that we did lose the ship,” SpaceX senior manager of quality systems engineering Kate Tice said.

SpaceX said in a post on X that the ship broke up during its ascent burn and that it would “continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause.” In a later statement, the company said “initial data indicates a fire developed” near the tail end of Starship and destroyed the vehicle.

After the rocket lost communication, social media users posted photos and videos of what appeared to be fireballs in the sky near the Caribbean islands. Starship’s launch trajectory takes it due east from Texas, which means the fireballs are likely debris from the rocket breaking apart and reentering the atmosphere.

In a statement, SpaceX said that Starship debris fell “into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.” The company establishes these potential risk areas with the Federal Aviation Administration before the launch.

The FAA issued a warning to pilots of a “dangerous area for falling debris of rocket Starship,” according to a notice. Multiple flights above the Caribbean diverted and appeared to be turning around, including commercial and cargo planes of JetBlue, Spirit, and FedEx, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.

“The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed,” the regulator said in a statement.

The airlines did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. As is required for rocket launches, standard air traffic control advisories were in place. Record-breaking demand for both launches and flights means that rockets compete with planes for limited airspace, especially near Florida.

Additionally, the FAA confirmed that it was “assessing” the anomaly that occurred during SpaceX’s Starship flight. The FAA often grounds rockets after midflight failures, requiring that space companies perform a mishap investigation and put in place corrective actions before the regulator issues a new launch license.

The FAA has not received any reports of injuries or property damage from Starship debris, a spokesperson told CNBC.

Starship launched from SpaceX’s private “Starbase” facility near Brownsville, Texas, shortly after 5:30 p.m. ET. A few minutes later, the rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster returned to land at the launch site, in SpaceX’s second successful “catch” during a flight. It did not catch the booster on the last flight.

There were no people on board the Starship flight. However, Elon Musk’s company was flying 10 “Starlink simulators” in the rocket’s payload bay and planned to attempt to deploy the satellite-like objects once in space. This would have been a key test of the rocket’s capabilities, as SpaceX needs Starship to deploy its much larger and heavier upcoming generation of Starlink satellites.

While SpaceX didn’t specify what the Starlink simulators were made of, mass simulators are commonly used in rocket vehicle development and are often simple constructions of metal or concrete that weigh roughly the same as the object in question.

Before losing communication, Starship was set to reach space and then travel halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff.

As with each previous flight, SpaceX aimed to push development further by assessing additional Starship capabilities, including tests of its heatshield tiles and the trajectory of its intense reentry.

Starship is critical to the company’s plans, even with its $350 billion valuation and already dominant position in the space industry.

Starship is both the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. Fully stacked on the Super Heavy booster, Starship stands 403 feet tall and is about 30 feet in diameter. SpaceX has flown the full Starship rocket system on six spaceflight tests so far since April 2023, at a steadily increasing cadence.

The Super Heavy booster, which stands 232 feet tall, is what begins the rocket’s journey to space. At its base are 33 Raptor engines, which together produce 16.7 million pounds of thrust — about double the 8.8 million pounds of thrust of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which launched for the first time in 2022.

Starship itself, at 171 feet tall, has six Raptor engines — three for use while in the Earth’s atmosphere and three for operating in the vacuum of space.

The rocket is powered by liquid oxygen and liquid methane. The full system requires more than 10 million pounds of propellant for launch.

The Starship flying on this launch, tagged as Ship 33, also represents a second-generation version of the vehicle, called “Block 2.”

SpaceX noted that the “significant upgrades” to this vehicle include changes to the flaps on the vehicle’s nose, redesigns of its propulsion system to boost performance, an enhanced flight computer, 30 cameras placed along the vehicle for monitoring the rocket and a reinforced heat shield.

Additionally, the booster for this flight attempt features a reused Raptor engine. That engine flew during the fifth test flight last year.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon. SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.

— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to launch its third Starship test flight as soon as Thursday morning after federal regulators signed off on the attempt.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday issued SpaceX the launch license the company needed to fly its latest Starship prototype.

The FAA said SpaceX “met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements.”

SpaceX is targeting a launch window between 8 a.m. ET and 9:50 a.m. ET on Thursday. The company plans to livestream the launch, with a webcast beginning 30 minutes before the window opens.

The company aims to build on the past year’s Starship prototype flights, the second and most recent of which reached space in November. The test flights have had mixed results, with both rockets flying for a few minutes and achieving some milestones before ultimately being destroyed due to problems.

SpaceX and the FAA conducted an investigation into the November launch’s problems, resulting in the company making changes to the monster rocket before the third attempt.

Additionally, SpaceX said it aims to demonstrate new capabilities with the third Starship flight, including opening and closing the door of the spacecraft, transferring fuel during the flight in a NASA demonstration and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

The Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch the second spaceflight attempt of its towering Starship rocket, the agency said Wednesday.

SpaceX posted on the social media platform X shortly after the greenlight that it was “targeting Friday, November 17 for Starship’s second flight test.”

A two-hour launch window will begin at 8 a.m. ET. SpaceX plans to livestream the Starship launch, with a webcast beginning about 30 minutes before lift off.

Starship first launched in April, achieving flight for a few minutes before exploding mid-air, severely damaging the ground infrastructure and raising environmental concerns. The FAA in coordination with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service launched a safety review prior to issuing a new flight license for the second attempt.

FWS determined that the rocket launch and subsequent damage to the pad infrastructure had no long-term negative effects on the surrounding ecology, according to an agency report released Wednesday. Still, SpaceX will help mitigate damage to the area by reducing sound waves and vibrations, assisting in fire suppression, and providing launch pad protection, the agency said.

As a result, “the FAA determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements,” the agency said in a statement Wednesday.

Starship is critical to NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon and to SpaceX’s own goals in the launch and satellite markets, representing significantly more launch capability than any rocket currently on the market.

Musk has in recent years shifted personnel and priorities to the rocket’s Starbase development facility in Texas to get the vehicle off the ground.

— CNBC’s Michael Sheetz contributed to this report.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday that SpaceX is not yet clear for another test flight of its Starship Super Heavy launch vehicle.

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

However, his aerospace and defense company hasn’t met the FAA’s requirements to be able to fly again after an explosion in April 2023 during the first test flight of this vehicle.

The first Starship launch saw the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket fly for more than three minutes — but it lost multiple engines, caused severe damage to the ground infrastructure and failed to reach space after the rocket began to tumble and was intentionally destroyed in the air.

The mishap left a crater in the ground, flung concrete chunks into nearby tanks and other equipment, and impacted sensitive habitat that is home to some endangered wildlife. It also sparked an approximately 4-acre fire on state park land.

The Starship launch “anomaly” triggered a mishap investigation that will be overseen by the FAA — a standard practice by the agency, which is responsible for protecting the public during commercial space transportation launch and reentry operations.

In a statement sent to CNBC on Wednesday night, the FAA said: “The SpaceX Starship mishap investigation remains open. The FAA will not authorize another Starship launch until SpaceX implements the corrective actions identified during the mishap investigation and demonstrates compliance with all the regulatory requirements of the license modification process.”

Ars Technica first reported on the matter. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In July, the FAA was asked to deliver a briefing to the Senate and House appropriations committees on their mishap report, before SpaceX conducts any future Starship Super Heavy launches.

NASA is currently reliant on SpaceX alone to transport people from the U.S. into orbit. With its Starship program, SpaceX is aiming to move heavy science equipment into orbit, and to economically transport higher volumes of cargo and people to the Moon and eventually Mars.

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

The SpaceX CEO’s relationship with state and federal regulators and with certain members of Congress is a tense one.

Musk has flouted FAA requirements in recent years, for example. The New Yorker reported that in December 2020, Musk pushed SpaceX to go against the agency’s orders and conduct a test flight of a rocket called the SN8 on a date for which the agency had explicitly barred that activity. The SN8 rocket exploded.

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

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