SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft experienced a dramatic mid-flight breakup during its seventh test flight on Thursday, forcing airlines to reroute at least 20 flights to avoid falling debris, Al Jazeera reports.
The incident occurred approximately eight and a half minutes after liftoff from the company’s launch site near Brownsville, Texas, despite a successful return of the first-stage booster earlier in the mission
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed it had briefly slowed and diverted air traffic in the vicinity of the debris field. “Normal operations have resumed,” an FAA spokesperson said. Flight tracking data from FlightRadar24 revealed that at least 20 flights altered their courses to steer clear of potential falling debris, which was reportedly witnessed re-entering the atmosphere over the Caribbean.
While SpaceX successfully recovered its first-stage booster, a major achievement they have previously demonstrated, the uncrewed Starship vehicle itself suffered what the company described as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” during its ascent burn. The prototype spacecraft was carrying 10 dummy satellites and was intended to complete a partial loop around the Earth before its catastrophic failure.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder, suggested the likely cause of the breakup was an oxygen or fuel leak within the cavity above the ship’s engine firewall.
“Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month,” Musk wrote on X.
Musk, known for his candid approach, acknowledged the mission failure, sharing footage of the falling debris and adding, “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
SpaceX released a statement emphasizing the value of the data gathered during the test.
“Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause,” the company said in its post on X. “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability.”
The Starship program is central to Musk’s ambition to transport humans and cargo to Mars. This seventh test flight aimed to further validate the design of the massive vehicle.
The incident comes on the same day that Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin successfully launched its New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time, marking a significant moment in the rapidly developing commercial space travel industry. Musk, in a lighthearted response, compared his relationship with Bezos to the comedic dynamic between the characters played by Will Ferrell and John C Reilly in the film “Step Brothers.”
