An aerial view of a Starship prototype stacked on a Super Heavy booster at the company's Starbase facility outside of Brownsville, Texas. Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to join the Federal Aviation Administration as a co-defendant to fight a lawsuit brought by environmental groups following the company's first test flight of Starship, the world's largest rocket, which ended in a mid-flight explosion last month. The lawsuit seeks for the FAA to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) — a lengthy and thorough procedure that would likely sideline SpaceX's Starship work in Texas for years. The company also wrote in the motion that "the FAA does not adequately represent SpaceX's interests" in the lawsuit, since it's a government agency. The FAA in a statement to CNBC said it "does not comment on ongoing litigation issues."

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