S Poddar
SpaceX’s ambitious Starship rocket suffered another blow as it blew up during a recent test flight, grounding several flights in Florida due to falling debris. The latest incident came months after a failed launch attempt, further questioning the difficulties of creating the world’s most powerful spacecraft.
The giant 403-foot rocket launched from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, Starbase facility at around 6:30 PM Eastern Time (12:30 AM UK time). Just a few minutes after it started, contact was lost since the spacecraft tumbled out of control. Starship, a vehicle that is being considered an integral part in upcoming lunar and Mars missions, was supposed to undertake a controlled fall over the Indian Ocean but was hit by a sudden malfunction, resulting in a tragic failure.
As the vehicle rushed east, engines at the top of the spacecraft started to shut down. Shortly afterward, burning debris was seen over Florida and across the Caribbean, with footage of the accident passing widely on the internet. The precise location of where the rocket landed is still not determined.
In a press statement, SpaceX admitted the malfunction as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” when the rocket ascended. SpaceX assured that its crew had gone into emergency meetings with safety regulators to execute measures of fallback as soon as the malfunction became known.
“We will take today’s test data under review to understand better the underlying cause. Success is always derived from what we can learn, and today’s flight will provide lessons for making Starship more reliable,” the company added.
Even with the explosion, the mission did see some success, with the Super Heavy booster—a pivotal part of the rocket—being recovered successfully. The booster was snatched by enormous mechanical claws and returned to the launch pad in a safe manner, with this being a huge improvement on SpaceX’s vision of building a fully reusable launch system.
Among those who saw the explosion directly was biotechnology consultant Bret Bostwick, who was observing the launch on a catamaran off Ragged Island in the Bahamas.
“I was watching with my boys, seven and nine years old, and then suddenly, you know, boom! It just became a big ball of fire, actually no noise,” he described. “So there wasn’t really a boom at that time, but just a huge fireball. And both my children knew immediately it had blown up again. We had witnessed Starship seven blow up. So we’re sort of, I suppose, little experts down here at recognizing the explosion.”
Bostwick explained the dramatic imagery of the incident. “A fireball was on the horizon, and then it came over, right over the top of our boat. It looked more like a big firework show with big streamers of different debris going down, and every chunk of the ship seemed to glow a different color.”
He said the explosion seemed to occur at approximately the same location as the earlier failed test. “Hopefully, they’ll learn, and it’ll get a little further next time,” he said.
In reaction to the accident, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared a temporary ground stop, grounding several flights at major airports in Florida, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando. The alert was in place until 8 PM (1 AM UK time), resulting in a 45-minute average delay for departures. The FAA also stated that SpaceX needs to make a full inquiry into the incident before further launches are sanctioned.
This is the second major test flight failure of a Starship in recent months. A prior effort in January also ended with the rocket exploding during an ascent over the Bahamas eight minutes into its flight. The explosion left blazing wreckage scattered across the Turks and Caicos sky, although no one was injured and there was no extensive damage.
After the January incident, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk turned to X (formerly Twitter) to post early observations about the failure. “Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was big enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity,” he described.
In spite of these failures, SpaceX is still focused on developing the technology behind Starship, a vehicle that is being conceived as an essential part of future deep-space travel. The company’s long-term aim is to build a completely reusable spacecraft that will transport people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. With every failed test comes valuable information, which moves SpaceX one step closer to making this vision a reality.
