SpaceX starship explodes in the air after successful booster catch: What happened?

The SpaceX company, owned by Elon Musk, finally launched this Thursday its eighth test flight of the Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket in the world, after having been canceled three times. One of them occurred last Monday during the count, a few minutes before takeoff, due to technical reasons. However, this time, live video showed the upper-stage Starship vehicle spinning in space before all communication was lost.

This comes after the last attempt in mid-January. In that opportunity, the upper module of the rocket exploded a few minutes into the flight, causing a shower of incandescent debris over the Caribbean. Furthermore, material damage landed on the Turks and Caicos Islands, more than 2,500 kilometers from the launch site. Similarly, the ship appears to have exploded less than 10 minutes into flight and created a massive debris cloud near the same populated islands on Thursday.

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SpaceX Starship explodes in the air

At 6:30 local time (23:30 GMT) the rocket powered by the Super Heavy took off without problems from the SpaceX base in Boca Chica, in southern Texas, as planned after facing delays. It was originally scheduled for February 28, and in the face of great expectations after what happened in January with the explosion of the seventh flight. It’s not rare for accidents to happen in the development of new rockets and spaceships, but Thursday’s failure is the second in a row for Starship.

However, once more, the mission was cut short after controllers lost contact with the upper-stage vehicle. “I think it’s pretty obvious we’re not going to continue the rest of the mission today,” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot stated on the company’s live webcast. It is not yet clear whether if the upper stage broke apart or where it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. Huot mentioned during the webcast that the company has measures to track possible debris and that it works “closely with air traffic control.”

What happened with SpaceX starship this time?

SpaceX’s Dan Huot had confirmed that the company was no longer receiving data from the Starship minutes after takeoff. The current status of the vehicle was unclear, and it was uncertain whether its automated abort systems might have triggered a self-destruct for safety reasons.

“We are no longer getting telemetry at this moment. We were about 20 seconds from the end of that ship’s engine burn,” Huot explained. “We observed several engines begin to shut down.” The signal loss occurred at a similar point in the mission as with Flight 7, which ended with Starship exploding over the populated islands of Turks and Caicos, scattering debris and hitting a car.

A major milestone despite the failure?

SpaceX confirmed on X that Starship was destroyed mid-flight, using the company’s euphemism for an unexpected destruction: “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” “Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses,” the company’s statement reads.

While the test flight was brief, it achieved a significant milestone. The Super Heavy booster successfully returned to its launch site and was caught by the tower’s robotic arms. This marked the third time SpaceX has showcased the impressive "catch" maneuver, a crucial step in its mission to make Starship a fully reusable system.