The FAA says SpaceX and Blue Origin must investigate this week’s massive rocket tests

The Federal Aviation Administration is asking Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to investigate what went wrong with their respective mega-rocket test flights this week.

Regulator both companies said must carry out what is known as an ‘accident investigation’. These investigations involve the companies and the FAA working together to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong, and to take corrective action. Either way, the regulator will have to sign off on the companies before those rockets can fly again. It was not immediately known how long that would take.

In SpaceX’s case, the explosion occurred during the seventh test flight of the Starship rocket system, which launched Thursday from Boca Chica, Texas. Musk he wrote In X, the Starship itself was over-pressurized due to excess gas on its way up into space and eventually exploded. Company official explanation on its website, the interior of the ship burned.

The destruction of the starship created a debris field that lit up the sky over the Turks and Caicos Islands, prompting the FAA to slow and even change some flights in nearby airspace as a result of low fuel levels. There were no reports of injuries, according to the FAA, but the regulator said it was working with SpaceX to “confirm reports of damage to public property in the Turks and Caicos Islands.”

SpaceX and the FAA are already at odds over a specific detail about the explosion. The FAA has activated what is technically known as a “Debris Intervention Area,” which the administration says it does only if pieces of the spacecraft fall outside the danger zones established before launch. SpaceX insists on its website that “(a) surviving debris would have fallen into the designated danger zone.”

Hours before SpaceX’s rocket launch, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. the first time. The upper stage of the New Glenn rocket successfully launched into orbit, but the booster exploded as it returned to attempt to land on a drone ship at sea.

The FAA says it is aware of the anomaly during the Blue Origin mission and reports no injuries or damage to public property.