[Image: Spacex Frontpage / Facebook]
Mars will have to wait a little longer after the second SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded minutes after lifting off from Texas yesterday.
The setback is the second consecutive failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.
Social media videos showed fiery debris streaking through the skies near Florida and the Bahamas after Starship’s breakup in space. The company did, however, manage to catch the booster rocket once again, so that part of the mission seems to be locked in.
The failure comes just over a month after SpaceX’s seventh Starship flight also ended in a catastrophic explosion. These consecutive setbacks occurred during early mission phases that SpaceX has successfully navigated in the past, pointing to significant challenges for a program that Elon Musk has aimed to accelerate this year.
SpaceX’s livestream showed the Starship upper stage spinning in space, while a visualization of the rocket’s engines showed multiple engines shut down before the company confirmed it had lost contact with the ship.
“Unfortunately, this happened last time, too, so we’ve got some practice now,” Dan Huot, a SpaceX spokesperson, said on the live stream.
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.
We will review the data from today’s flight test to better…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 7, 2025
As debris scattered over parts of the Caribbean, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued ground stops of commercial flights at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of “space launch debris.”
The FAA said it had initiated a mishap investigation into the incident and that SpaceX would need to analyse the reason for the accident to get the agency’s approval before Starship was allowed to fly again.
[Source: Guardian]