Washington: SpaceX conducted its eighth test flight of the Starship rocket on Thursday, successfully executing the “catch” of the Super Heavy booster. However, the Starship rocket broke apart less than ten minutes into the flight. According to SpaceX engineers, the 400-foot-tall spacecraft, launched from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas, lost control of its altitude after multiple engines failed 20 seconds before the end of the ascent burn.
SpaceX acknowledged the failure in a post on X, stating that during the ascent burn, the rocket experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” and contact was lost. The team immediately began coordinating with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency measures. SpaceX emphasized that they would analyze the data from the flight to determine the root cause and noted that every test provides valuable lessons to improve the Starship’s reliability.
Nearly one million viewers watched the live stream of the launch, which abruptly cut out when the Starship appeared to lose control. While the rocket was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean, videos shared on social media showed flaming debris from the Starship falling into the Atlantic Ocean, with residents in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos witnessing the wreckage.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that several airports in Florida temporarily grounded flights due to space launch debris. SpaceX lost contact with the Starship before it could deploy its test satellites, which were scheduled for release at the 17-minute mark of the flight.
Before the apparent explosion, SpaceX successfully performed its third catch of the Super Heavy booster, which is equipped with 33 Raptor engines. The booster was retrieved at the Texas launchpad by the “chopsticks” mechanical arms designed to catch the reusable propellant.
Earlier on Monday, SpaceX had postponed the test flight just before the scheduled launch. The delay occurred when a flight hold was initiated due to an unresolved issue with the Super Heavy booster, which was flagged by computers 23 minutes before the countdown was set to finish.