SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded just minutes into its seventh test flight, an unexpected setback after the Elon Musk-led company had made steady progress in improving the vehicle's capabilities.
While the upper part of the rocket was lost, SpaceX managed to pull off another complicated maneuver, bringing the superheavy lower part of the spacecraft back to Earth and capturing it in the air using giant mechanical arms.
Why did the SpaceX spaceship explode? Elon Musk explains…
Elon Musk breaks down the failure at
Apart from obviously double checking for leaks, we will add firefighting to that volume and probably increase the ventilation area. Nothing so far indicates that the next launch will take place next month.
Meanwhile, the FAA revealed that the plane briefly slowed and diverted the plane toward the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed.
Commercial flights were diverted
Commercial flights operated by JetBlue Airways Corp. and American Airlines Group Inc. were forced to take action after a failed SpaceX Starship test flight exploded Thursday, according to a Bloomberg report.
Some flights over the Caribbean were diverted mid-flight or circled on tracking website Flightradar24. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it was slowing and diverting planes around the area where the space vehicle debris fell.
Normal operations have since resumed, the US aviation regulator said.
Everything you need to know about the spaceship explosion
The largest and most powerful rocket ever built lifted off the launch pad of SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas at 4:37 p.m. local time on Thursday. It was to attempt to reach near-orbital speeds and deploy ten dummy spacecraft designed to mimic the size, shape and weight of the upgraded SpaceX Starlink satellites that Starship will launch in the future.
But just under 8 1/2 minutes into the mission, SpaceX lost communication with Starship. Launch commentators then said the vehicle was “lost.” Musk later posted a video on his social media site
Thursday's mission marked the shortest Starship test flight since November 2023, when SpaceX lost the vehicle about eight minutes after its second-ever launch. The apparent explosion was an unexpected twist after SpaceX had repeatedly made progress on its Starship test flights, pushing the vehicle further with each new launch attempt.
(With input from Reuters and Bloomberg)