The world’s most powerful launch vehicle, SpaceX’s Starship, exploded in space during its 8th flight test on Thursday, March 6, making it the company’s second failure this year. Starship was launched in Texas at 6:30 p.m., and not long after, the engines ruptured and left behind fiery debris spotted in Florida and across the Bahamas.
SpaceX, a space exploration company creating notable rockets and spacecrafts, was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla. Musk’s objective for Starship was to enable the spacecraft for missions to colonize Mars and explore other distant planets.
“There’s high urgency to making life multi-planetary,” Musk said in a 2024 article with the New York Times. “We’ve got to do it while civilization is so strong.
Starship’s recent flight test was expected to make close to a full orbit around Earth and a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The first phase where Starship flew back to Earth and was grabbed by the SpaceX crane was a success. Shortly after a few minutes, SpaceX lost its connection with Starship, and the spacecraft was destroyed. Starship’s flight lasted around nine minutes and 30 seconds after its departure from the ground.
“Once you lose enough of those center engines, you’re going to lose attitude control,” Dan Huot, SpaceX communications manager, said in a CNN article. “And so we did see the ship start to go into a spin, and at this point, we have lost contact with the ship.”
SpaceX said the debris caused from the explosion did not consist of toxic and harmful materials, and there were no damages to any public or private property. However, flights in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports were delayed for people’s safety.
“Any surviving debris would have fallen within the pre-planned Debris Response Area,” SpaceX said in the same CNN article. “There are no toxic materials present in the debris and no significant impacts expected to occur to marine species or water quality.”
A similar incident occurred with Starship’s 7th flight test on Thursday, Jan. 16. The spacecraft exploded eight minutes into the flight because of a leak in the rear section of the ship. The unsuccessful test caused debris over the Caribbean Islands and a slight damage to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands, which raised concerns for future flight tests.
“Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we’ve got some practice now,” the Associated Press said in an NPR article.
Despite the failed trials this year, SpaceX is making preparations and improvements to Starship in order to have other launches, one that would possibly leave for Mars at the end of 2026.
