FAA Formally Grounds Starship Pending IFT-12 Mishap Investigation; Artemis III Crew Reveal 12 Days Away

The FAA formally grounded Starship operations on May 27-28, 2026, requiring completion of a SpaceX-led mishap investigation before any further Starship launches can receive a flight license. Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and Spaceflight Now all confirmed the formal grounding, citing the IFT-12 Booster 19 anomaly (May 22): multiple Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the boostback burn following stage separation, resulting in an uncontrolled crash in the Gulf of Mexico rather than a return to Starbase. The FAA stated that SpaceX must complete its investigation with FAA oversight and FAA must approve the corrective-action report before IFT-13 can receive a flight license. IFT-13 (Ship 40 + Booster 20, V3 architecture) has an FCC Special Temporary Authority window running May 29–November 29, 2026, but the FAA grounding blocks any launch until the assessment concludes — SpaceX and NASA both indicate earliest IFT-13 is Q3 2026. This pushes the orbital propellant transfer demonstration — a mandatory NASA Artemis III HLS qualification milestone requiring two Starships docking in LEO — further into Q3-Q4 2026 at the earliest. In parallel, NASA's June 9 Artemis III crew announcement at Johnson Space Center is now 12 days away. May 28 was the official press-accreditation RSVP deadline for international media to attend the JSC event (5 p.m. EDT); credentialed journalists are now confirmed for the announcement. The June 9 event (11 a.m. EDT, streamed on NASA+ and YouTube) will be the first time astronaut names are publicly assigned to Artemis III. Artemis III — redesignated as an Earth-orbit rendezvous and docking test targeting late 2027 — will fly with a structural spacer instead of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage; MSFC is fabricating the barrel and ring components. Mission objectives include rendezvous and docking with both SpaceX Starship HLS pathfinder and Blue Origin Blue Moon Mk2 at approximately 460 km LEO to test Axiom AxEMU spacesuit interfaces and crew procedures without a lunar surface excursion. The Artemis II crew — Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen — are on Day 48 post-splashdown at Johnson Space Center, continuing their post-flight reconditioning program.