SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday, just minutes after launching from Texas, marking the second consecutive failure for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program this year. The explosion led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to briefly halt air traffic across parts of Florida due to falling debris.
Videos circulating on social media captured fiery debris streaking across the skies near South Florida and the Bahamas after Starship lost control and broke apart. SpaceX’s live stream showed the rocket spinning uncontrollably before communication was lost.
The eighth test flight comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosion. The back-to-back failures occurred at early stages of the mission, which SpaceX had previously surpassed with ease. This setback complicates Musk’s vision of using Starship to send humans to Mars by the end of the decade.
The FAA issued temporary ground stops at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports due to concerns about space debris. The agency has now launched an investigation, requiring SpaceX to determine the cause of the failure and obtain regulatory approval before Starship can fly again.
Starship lifted off at 6:30 p.m. ET (0030 WAT) from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas facility. The Super Heavy booster successfully returned to Earth, but the upper stage lost control shortly after reaching space.
SpaceX later confirmed that Starship suffered an “energetic event” in its aft section, which caused multiple engines to fail and resulted in a loss of attitude control. The final communication with the rocket was at 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.
“This happened last time too, so we’ve got some practice now,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot commented during the live stream.
Unlike the previous test in January, which scattered debris across the Caribbean and damaged a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands, SpaceX stated that no toxic materials were present in Thursday’s debris.
SpaceX had planned for Starship to complete nearly a full orbit around Earth before re-entering over the Indian Ocean in a simulated landing sequence. This would have been a key milestone for the program’s next phase—eventually executing controlled land-based landings.
The FAA had approved Thursday’s test flight even while its investigation into January’s failure remained open. Now, SpaceX must once again review the cause of the failure and gain regulatory clearance before attempting another launch.
Melissa Enoch
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