Starship lifts off for a test flight (image: x.com/SpaceX)
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket received yet another setback on Thursday as it exploded in space during its eighth test flight. The debris has been scattered across parts of Florida and the Bahamas.
Minutes after its liftoff from the company’s launch site in Texas’ Boca Chica, the SpaceX’s livestream showed the Starship spacecraft spinning uncontrollably in space.
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During the livestream SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said that “we’ve lost several engines and we’ve lost attitude control for the vehicle.”
If you’re keeping count, that’s four Starship explosions out of eight attempts—an impressive failure rate.
Elon’s philosophy seems to be the same for everything: blow it up, waste billions, and call it innovation. pic.twitter.com/jjvgIsWipY
— Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) March 7, 2025
The video footage of debris falling down over the South Florida and the Bahamas is circulating on social media. Due to the falling of debris, the Federal Aviation Administration has briefly halted flights to four Florida airports, including Miami international airport.
In a statement released on X, SpaceX said that spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” which resulted in the crash.
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
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Following, company issued another statement, in which it added: “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.”
The current incident follows a previous failure in January, wherein the upper stage of Starship exploded over the Caribbean, debris fell down on the Turks and Caicos Islands.
