A SpaceX Starship rocket disintegrated in space minutes after blasting off from Texas on Thursday, forcing airliners over the Gulf of Mexico to change course to avoid falling debris and thwart Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.
SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but without a crew, eight minutes after liftoff from rocket facilities in south Texas at 5:38 p.m. ET.
Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving plumes of smoke behind. “We lost all communications with the ship, which basically means we had an anomaly in the upper stage,” said Dan Huot, SpaceX communications manager, confirming minutes later that the ship was missing.
The last time the spacecraft's upper stage failed was last March as the craft re-entered Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but it's rare for a SpaceX mishap to cause widespread disruptions to air traffic.
Flights forced to divert
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, dozens of commercial flights were diverted to other airports or diverted to avoid potential debris. Departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were also delayed by about 45 minutes, he added.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates private launch operations, said it briefly slowed and diverted planes near the area where space debris was falling, but normal operations have since resumed.
The FAA regularly closes airspace to space launches and re-entries, but may create a “garbage response area” to prevent aircraft from entering if the space vehicle experiences anomalies outside the original closed zone.
SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video of a debris field on X and said, “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
The failure came a day after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' billionaire space company Blue Origin successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.
A higher version of its predecessor
Starship's upper stage, two meters taller than previous versions, was a “next-generation spacecraft with significant improvements,” SpaceX said in a pre-test mission description. It was scheduled to make a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launching from Texas.
Musk said an initial assessment of the failure showed an internal leak of liquid oxygen, which caused pressure to build up and led to the rocket breaking up.
The FAA will likely launch an investigation into a mishap that would result in a grounding of Starship – as the agency has done in the past – and examine whether any debris from the in-flight rocket explosion fell into populated areas or beyond Starship's predetermined danger zone.
The mishap threatens to derail Musk's goal of launching at least 12 spacecraft tests this year, depending on how quickly SpaceX can implement fixes and whether the FAA opens an investigation into the mishap.
Musk critical of the FAA
“So far, there is no suggestion that the next launch will be postponed until next month,” Musk said.
The billionaire, who was appointed by new US President-elect Donald Trump to lead the government's new cost-cutting effort, has repeatedly criticized the FAA for overreaching and making politically motivated decisions.
