A SpaceX Starship prototype failed in space Thursday just minutes after launching from Texas, forcing the airline’s flights to be diverted over the Gulf of Mexico to avoid falling debris and derailing Elon Musk’s flagship rocket program. Fell.
SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of simulated satellites, eight minutes after liftoff from its South Texas rocket facilities at 5:38 p.m. EST (2238 GMT).
Video shot by Reuters shows orange balls of light in the sky over the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke in their wake.
“We’ve lost all communications with the ship – that’s essentially telling us that we had an anomaly with the upper stage,” said SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot. Confirming a few minutes later that the ship was lost.
The last time a Starship upper stage failed was in March last year as it was re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX accident caused the widespread disruption to air traffic.
At Miami International Airport, some flights were grounded, according to a Reuters witness. At least 20 commercial flights were diverted or diverted to other airports to avoid possible debris, based on flight records from the tracking website FlightRadar24. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates private launch activities, said it was assessing the situation.
SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video showing the debris field on X and said: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
The Starship upper stage, 2 meters (6.56 ft) longer than previous versions, was a “new generation ship with significant upgrades,” SpaceX said in a mission statement ahead of the test. It was to make a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch from Texas.
Mechazilla has captured the Super Heavy Booster! pic.twitter.com/aq91TloYzY
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) 16 January 2025
The mission was SpaceX’s seventh Starship test in Musk’s multibillion-dollar effort by 2023 to build rockets capable of carrying humans and cargo to Mars, as well as deploying large batches of satellites in Earth orbit. I was able to.
SpaceX’s trial-and-fail development approach has included spectacular failures in the past as the company pushes Starship prototypes to their engineering limits. However, Thursday’s test failure occurred in a mission stage that SpaceX has previously flown.
Meanwhile, as planned, the giant Super Heavy booster returned to its launchpad about seven minutes after liftoff, slowing its descent from space by reactivating its Raptor engines as it lowered itself to a launch tower. Was attached to huge mechanical weapons.
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