SpaceX’s Latest Starship Explodes Mid Flight

Photo Credit: Eric Grey/Associated Press

SpaceX, a private aerospace company owned by Elon Musk, launched its uncrewed Starship rocket on Jan. 16. In their seventh test flight, the ship was meant to fly across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas — almost a full loop around the world. However, the flight only lasted eight and a half minutes before the upper half of the rocket exploded over the Turks and Caicos islands.

The Starship launch system consists of three core components: the “Super Heavy” rocket base, the Starship upper stage, and the Starbase — an operational centre that includes a roughly 480 feet tall tower designed to release and catch the spacecraft. Two minutes and forty seconds into the launch, the upper stage separated from the booster rocket, as intended, and continued its trajectory around the world. The Super Heavy booster descended tail first towards the Starbase, initiating its ‘Raptor’ model engines to decelerate, and was successfully caught by two chopstick-like arms from the launch tower.

However, according to Global News, eight and a half minutes into the launch, Starship’s ground control announced that they lost communication with the upper stage of the spacecraft, and that telemetric data was not being transmitted back. 

SpaceX commentator Dan Huot explained on the launch’s official livestream that “[the loss of telemetry] is essentially telling us we had an anomaly with the upper stage.” 

Burning fragments of the upper stage were then seen falling amongst a cloud of smoke toward the Turks and Caicos islands. Although SpaceX has not received any reports of injury, the company has been working with authorities to confirm reports of property damage.

Although the loss of telemetry obscured the events leading to the explosion, there were a few initial warnings of failure that appeared during the launch.

Musk posted on X that the first indication of the problem was linked to an “oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall.” A SpaceX news release stated that “initial data indicates that a fire developed in the aft section of the ship,” causing a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” over the Atlantic ocean. Musk said on X that in future test flights, SpaceX will “double check for leaks, add fire suppression to [the region] and probably increase vent area,” to fix future problems.