SpaceX Starship explodes, airlines divert flights

• Published On: 17 January 2025 at 18:44

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in space shortly after its Thursday launch from Texas, with the debris visible over the Caribbean.

Videos online showed fiery debris over the Turks and Caicos Islands, while Reuters captured footage from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

The company reported losing contact with the upgraded Starship upper stage, the rocket’s top section, eight minutes after liftoff.

The rocket was carrying SpaceX’s first test payload of mock satellites.

“We did lose all communications with the ship. So, I mean that is essentially telling us that we had an anomaly with that upper stage. So we were just coming up to the end of that asset burn for the ship when we stopped until or when we started to lose, uh, a couple of the engines, we saw those dropping out and then we did lose telemetry from the ship.”

Musk stated that a preliminary assessment indicated an internal leak of liquid oxygen fuel caused the rocket’s breakup.

The incident prompted airlines to reroute flights over the Gulf of Mexico to avoid debris.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration temporarily slowed and diverted planes around the debris area, but normal operations have since resumed. The FAA is expected to open a mishap investigation.

The investigation could ground Starship and assess whether debris fell on populated areas or outside the hazard zone.

Depending on the required fixes and the FAA probe, the investigation may delay Musk’s goal of conducting 12 Starship tests this year.

Though Musk, after the incident, said on X that, quote, ‘Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.’