Elon Musk's Starship explodes midair; marks second failure in 6 weeks

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s spacetech venture SpaceX's latest Starship test flight ended in failure just minutes after launch from Texas, with the spacecraft breaking apart midair on March 6. This was the company’s eighth test of its next-generation rocket.

“During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses,” Space X confirmed the incident in a post on X.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) briefly paused air traffic over parts of Florida following the incident.

Videos circulating on social media showed fiery debris streaking across the skies near South Florida and the Bahamas.

“We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests,” the post added.

The FAA had to issue ground stops at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports because of the falling debris.

The 403-foot rocket lifted off on late evening of March 6 from Boca Chica, Texas, with the Super Heavy first-stage booster successfully caught mid-air by a crane upon return. The mission reportedly aimed to complete a satellite delivery left unfinished in January.

“Prior to the end of the ascent burn, an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines. This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship. Final contact with Starship came approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff,” Space X said in a blogpost published on its website.

Nearly 1 million viewers watched SpaceX's live stream as Starship spun out of control before the feed cut out.

Starship is a fully reusable transportation system designed for crew and cargo missions to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. A Starship has a height of almost 121 metres, compared to NASA’s space shuttle of 56 metres which was used to build the International Space Station.

The eighth launch was reportedly scheduled prior to Thursday but, was postponed due to an unresolved Super Heavy booster issue. This marks Starship’s second failure in six weeks. Since April 2023, Starship has launched eight times, with four successes and four failures. Three more launches are reportedly expected this year. Elon Musk has estimated Starship’s total development cost between $2 billion and $10 billion, with each launch costing tens of millions of dollars, as reported by Guardian.