| Welcome back to FOIA Files! Two years ago, I requested a copy of an investigative report conducted by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and sent to the Federal Aviation Administration after one of its rockets exploded shortly after takeoff from the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The 102-page document finally arrived last week, but it’s almost entirely redacted! There are a few unredacted sentence fragments and paragraphs here and there throughout the document. I asked my colleague, space reporter extraordinaire Loren Grush, to help me make sense of it. Let’s put some of these puzzle pieces together! But first... I'm answering your questions live today! | Curious about the state of FOIA? Tune in to my Bloomberg Live Q&A conversation with Edward Ludlow starting at 1pm EDT. Bloomberg digital subscribers get the exclusive opportunity to post questions while the session is live, but if you email me your questions in advance, we'll work those in too: liveqa@bloomberg.net. If you’re not already getting FOIA Files in your inbox, sign up here. Now back to SpaceX... When SpaceX’s Starship Orbital Test Flight 1 took off on April 20, 2023 it left a wake of destruction on the ground. As we reported at the time: “Concrete chunks had left craters a foot deep and were strewn across tidal flats, almost four acres of state park were burned, and seven bobwhite quail eggs and a collection of blue land crabs had been incinerated.” Since the flight also ended in a mid-air explosion, the Federal Aviation Administration required SpaceX to conduct a “mishap investigation” explaining what went wrong. In August 2023, the company sent its report to the FAA, but it wasn’t publicly released. The FAA did release a letter the following month that said the agency “has been provided with sufficient information and accepts the root causes and corrective actions described in the mishap report.” “Consequently, the FAA considers the mishap investigation that SpaceX was required to complete to be concluded,” the letter said. “The final mishap investigation report cited a total of sixty-three (63) corrective actions for SpaceX to implement.” I’m not one to leave documents I have fought to release on the cutting room floor. With that said, I’m sharing the report the FAA released to me despite all the redactions. (Feel free to reach out if you know what’s behind all of the black ink!) The table of contents, which was left partially unredacted, provides a bit of insight into what the investigation entailed. Let’s dive into a few details that can be gleaned from the report. For starters, the most apparent thing: there’s a lot of black ink. Given that this isn’t a top secret report about covert operations from the CIA or NSA, it’s worth explaining the reasons behind that. Typically companies of all kinds—whether they make rockets or pharmaceuticals or toys—are hyperalert for any details that could slip out in these types of reports, such as trade secrets that competitors could seize on. That’s why FOIA allows an exemption for protecting commercial or financial information and trade secrets. For example, on page five, an unredacted paragraph says, “The Starship and Super Heavy program is focused on a new launch vehicle still in the early stages of development by SpaceX.” That’s highly proprietary information, and a likely justification for why we're not seeing much of anything disclosed in the report. Also, the FAA withheld quite a bit of information citing “Category IV of the United States Munitions List, Launch Vehicles, Guided Missiles, Ballistic Missiles, Rockets, Torpedoes, Bombs, and Mines.” It’s pretty common, it turns out, for this type of information to be withheld since rockets use some of the same technology as weapons, notably intercontinental ballistic missiles. Under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the sharing of such information is fiercely policed to prevent weapons technology from floating around on the internet. Setting the sea of black ink aside, there were a few other takeaways from the portions of the report that weren’t blacked out. The FAA left untouched some information about the launchpad deck failure, concluding that: “Shortly after liftoff, video evidence indicates that a significant structural failure of the launch pad deck foundation occurred. This failure resulted in bulk soil displacement below and around the launch mount sending a considerable amount of sand and debris into the air.” In the end, the report concluded that as a result of “lessons learned” from the Starship incident, “SpaceX has redesigned the pad deck and foundation.” A few paragraphs in the executive summary were also left unredacted. For example, there’s a sentence that says, “This rule violation resulted in the firing of the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) destruct command on both the Super Heavy Booster and Starship’s independent AFSS.” Rockets are required to include a self-destruct technology in the event they veer off course. That’s because SpaceX and other space companies need to be able to command an errant rocket to blow up before it accidentally reaches a populated area and poses serious harm to people or property. In the case of this Starship mishap, as Loren reported, it was clear that the vehicle didn’t separate in time and was starting to spin out of control. One of the unredacted details in the SpaceX mishap report zeroes in on that. Another unredacted section explains that there appeared to be a significant lag between when SpaceX issued a self-destruct command and when the vehicle actually self-destructed. “The vehicle’s AFSS system was activated and an unexpected and unacceptably large delay between vehicle destruct charges firing and vehicle demise was observed. Root cause of this failure was design and test shortcomings of this system, and corrective actions have been implemented,” the report concluded. All of that said, this report leaves a lot to wonder about. In particular, what may be hidden behind the redactions? Some of the questions that remain include: what was the FAA’s analysis of the extent of the damage on the ground from the rocket’s debris? A key part of the FAA’s job is to protect the public and property from rocket launches. There's a misconception that the FAA is overseeing the entirety of a rocket launch, but really the agency is responsible for ensuring the safety and security of the public—nobody wants a piece of rocket falling onto their head or their house. Or on a bobwhite quail. Got a tip for a document you think I should request via FOIA? Do you have details to share about the state of FOIA under the Trump administration? Send me an email: jleopold15@bloomberg.net or jasonleopold@protonmail.com. Or send me a secure message on Signal: @JasonLeopold.666. | 
