A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after liftoff from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to change course to avoid falling debris and scuttling Elon Musk’s flagship rocket program.
SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded spacecraft, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but no crew, eight minutes after liftoff from its rocket facilities in South Texas at 5:38 p.m. ET.
Videos captured by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke. “We lost all communication with the ship — that essentially means we had an anomaly with the upper stage,” said SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot, confirming minutes later that the ship was lost.
The last time a spacecraft’s upper stage failed was in March last year when it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX mishap caused widespread disruption to air traffic.
Flights had to be diverted
Dozens of commercial flights were diverted to other airports or changed course to avoid possible debris, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were also delayed by about 45 minutes, it said.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates private launch activities, said it briefly slowed and diverted planes in the area where space debris was falling, but normal operations have since resumed.
The FAA periodically closes airspace for launches and space re-entries, but can establish a “debris response area” to prevent aircraft from entering if the spacecraft experiences an anomaly outside the original closed zone.
SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video on X showing the debris field and said: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
The failure came a day after Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully put its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.
Higher version of its predecessor
The Starship’s upper stage, two meters taller than previous versions, is a “new-generation ship with significant improvements,” SpaceX said in a mission description before the test. It was scheduled to make a controlled splash into the Indian Ocean about an hour after taking off from Texas.
Musk said a preliminary assessment of the failure showed that an internal leak of liquid oxygen fuel built up pressure and caused the rocket to disintegrate.
The FAA will likely launch a mishap investigation that would keep Starship grounded — as the agency has done in the past — and examine whether debris from the rocket fell in-flight into populated areas or outside Starship’s designated danger zone.
The mishap threatens to derail Musk’s goal of launching at least 12 Starship tests this year, depending on how quickly SpaceX can implement fixes and whether the FAA launches an investigation into the mishap.
Musk criticizes FAA
“So far there is nothing to suggest delaying the next launch beyond next month,” Musk said.
The billionaire, who was appointed by new US President Donald Trump to a new government role aimed at cutting costs, has repeatedly criticized the FAA for going too far and making politically motivated decisions.
