 to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, with several videos circulating on social media showing fiery debris streaking across the dusk skies near South Florida and the Bahamas.){kind=link}
Elon Musk’s SpaceX suffered a significant setback on Thursday as its massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space, just minutes after launching from Texas. This marks the second consecutive failure this year for Musk’s Mars rocket programme.
The explosion prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, with several videos circulating on social media showing fiery debris streaking across the dusk skies near South Florida and the Bahamas.
SpaceX’s live stream captured the moment Starship began to spin uncontrollably, with its engines shutting down before contact was lost. The failure occurred during an early mission phase that SpaceX had previously surpassed with ease, presenting a setback for Musk’s ambitious timeline to accelerate the program this year.
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system remains central to Musk’s plan to send humans to Mars by the turn of the decade. The FAA briefly grounded flights at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports due to “space launch debris” and later announced an investigation into the mishap.
SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot remarked on the live stream, “Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we’ve got some practice now.”