SpaceX’s colossal Starship spacecraft met a fiery end in space on Thursday, just minutes after its launch from Texas, leading the FAA to temporarily suspend air traffic in parts of Florida. This marks the second consecutive failure for Elon Musk’s ambitious Mars rocket initiative this year.
Social media was flooded with videos capturing the dramatic scene of burning debris lighting up the evening sky over southern Florida and the Bahamas, as the Starship disintegrated shortly after it began to spin wildly with its engines turned off, according to a live stream of the mission.
This eighth test of the Starship comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in a catastrophic failure. These consecutive setbacks occurred during early mission stages that SpaceX had previously navigated successfully, posing a challenge for a program Musk aimed to accelerate this year.
The towering 123-meter rocket system is pivotal to Musk’s vision of sending humans to Mars by the end of the decade.
In response to the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration issued temporary ground stops at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports due to “space launch debris.” They have also initiated a mishap investigation into the event.
The rocket took off around 6:30 p.m. ET (2330 GMT) from SpaceX’s extensive Boca Chica, Texas, launch site. The Super Heavy first stage booster returned to Earth as intended and was successfully captured midair by a SpaceX crane.
However, just minutes later, the live stream revealed the Starship upper stage spinning uncontrollably in space, with a visualization indicating multiple engine shutdowns. Shortly after, the company announced it had lost contact with the spacecraft, prompting announcers to reference the earlier flight’s issues.
SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot remarked during the live stream, “This isn’t the first time we’ve faced this issue, so we have some experience to draw from.”
In a statement released late Thursday, SpaceX reported that Starship encountered an “energetic event” in its rear section, leading to the failure of several engines.
“This resulted in a loss of attitude control and ultimately caused us to lose communication with Starship,” the statement explained. “We last made contact with Starship about 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.”
SpaceX confirmed that there were no hazardous materials in the debris.
The previous Starship failure in January occurred eight minutes into the flight when the rocket exploded, scattering debris over Caribbean islands and causing minor damage to a vehicle in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
The FAA, which oversees private rocket launches, stated that its investigation would require SpaceX to analyze the cause of the failure and obtain the agency’s approval before Starship can launch again.
Last month, the FAA granted SpaceX a launch license for Thursday’s test flight, even as its investigation into the earlier Starship failure remained ongoing.
In its review, the FAA assessed SpaceX’s license application and initial findings from the company’s mishap investigation, allowing Starship’s eighth flight to proceed.
Starship aimed to complete nearly a full orbit around Earth and re-enter over the Indian Ocean for a splashdown, simulating a landing sequence that SpaceX plans to execute on land as a crucial next step in the rocket’s development.
