FAA says probe closed into SpaceX Starship Flight 8

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it closed an agency-required investigation into a SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap, citing the probable cause as a hardware failure in one of the engines.
SpaceX identified eight corrective actions to prevent a re-occurrence and the FAA said it verified SpaceX implemented those prior to the Starship Flight 9 mission in late May.

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Yahoo

5 hours ago

• Yahoo

SpaceX traces Starship test-stand explosion to failure of pressurized nitrogen tank

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. SpaceX thinks it knows why its newest Starship spacecraft went boom this week. The 171-foot-tall (52-meter-tall) vehicle exploded on a test stand at SpaceX's Starbase site late Wednesday night (June 18) as the company was preparing to ignite its six Raptor engines in a "static fire" trial. A day later, SpaceX narrowed in on a likely cause. "Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing," the company wrote in an update on Thursday (June 19). "There is no commonality between the COPVs used on Starship and SpaceX's Falcon rockets," the company added. So, launches of the workhorse Falcon 9, which has already flown 75 times in 2025, should not be affected. The Starship explosion did not cause any reported injuries; all SpaceX personnel at Starbase are safe, according to the update. People living around the site, which is near the border city of Brownsville, shouldn't be worried about contamination from the incident, SpaceX said. "Previous independent tests conducted on materials inside Starship, including toxicity analyses, confirm they pose no chemical, biological, or toxicological risks," the company wrote. "SpaceX is coordinating with local, state, and federal agencies, as appropriate, on matters concerning environmental and safety impacts." That said, the explosion did damage the area around the test stand, which is at Starbase's Massey site (not the orbital launch mount area, from which Starship lifts off). "The explosion ignited several fires at the test site which remains clear of personnel and will be assessed once it has been determined to be safe to approach," SpaceX wrote in the update. "Individuals should not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue." Related Stories: — SpaceX's Starship explodes in Texas during preparations for 10th test flight — SpaceX reached space with Starship Flight 9 launch, then lost control of its giant spaceship (video) — Starship and Super Heavy explained Wednesday night's explosion occurred during preparations for Starship's 10th flight test, which SpaceX had hoped to launch by the end of the month. (Static fires are common prelaunch tests, performed to ensure that engines are ready to fly.) That timeline will now shift to the right, though it's not clear at the moment by how much. The incident was the latest in a series of setbacks for Starship upper stages. SpaceX lost the vehicle — also known as Ship — on the last three Starship flight tests, which launched in January, March and May of this year. Starship's first stage, called Super Heavy, has a better track record of late. For example, on Flight 7 and Flight 8, the huge booster successfully returned to Starbase, where it was caught by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms as planned.

Business Insider

6 hours ago

• Business Insider

Elon Musk says xAI will retrain Grok: 'Far too much garbage'

When you're Elon Musk, you don't have to rely on centuries of prevailing human understanding — you can create your own. "We will use Grok 3.5 (maybe we should call it 4), which has advanced reasoning, to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors," Musk wrote on X on Friday night. Then, he said he would retrain Grok's latest model on that new base of knowledge to be free of proverbial waste. "Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data," he added. Musk has for years endeavored to create products, like the rebranded Twitter and Grok, that are free from what he views as harmful mainstream constraints. Business Insider previously reported that Grok's army of "AI tutors" was training the bot on a host of dicey topics to compete with OpenAI's more "woke" ChatGPT. Musk on Saturday asked X users to respond to his post with examples of "divisive facts" that can be used in Grok's retraining. Gary Marcus, an AI hype critic and professor emeritus at New York University, compared Musk's effort to an Orwellian dystopia, which isn't the first time he's made the comparison. "Straight out of 1984. You couldn't get Grok to align with your own personal beliefs, so you are going to rewrite history to make it conform to your views," he wrote on X in response to Musk. A revamped Grok could have real-world impacts. In May, just as Musk was stepping back from his work in Washington, DC to refocus on his various companies, Reuters reported that DOGE was planning to expand its use of Grok to analyze government data. "They ask questions, get it to prepare reports, give data analysis," a source told Reuters, referring to how the bot was being used. Two other sources told the outlet that officials in the Department of Homeland Security had been encouraged to use it despite the fact that it hadn't been approved. A representative for the department told the New Republic that "DOGE hasn't pushed any employees to use any particular tools or products." Grok has also had security issues. In May, after what the company said was an "unauthorized modification" to its backend, the bot started to frequently refer to "white genocide" in South Africa. The company quickly resolved the issue and said it had conducted a "thorough investigation" and was "implementing measures to enhance Grok's transparency and reliability."

Associated Press

12 hours ago

• Associated Press

Media Advisory - Simultaneous launch of Canadian space technologies

LONGUEUIL, QC, June 21, 2025 /CNW/ - Several technologies funded by the Canadian Space Agency under the Space Technology Development Program will be launched into space by SpaceX. These projects are a testament to Canada's leadership in space innovation. These innovations demonstrate the ability of Canadian companies to develop innovative technologies that meet the needs of the space program and have strong commercial potential. Media who wish to speak with a Canadian Space Agency expert or a representative from one of these Canadian companies are asked to contact the Media Relations Office. Website: Follow us on social media! SOURCE Canadian Space Agency