The Explosion and Disassembly of the SpaceX Starship: An Unscheduled Loss During its 7th Test Flight

The debris from the exploded space rocket created a bright firework show, which people in the area shared on their videos, but it also delayed flights.

Eight and a half minutes after launch yesterday, the upper stage of the SpaceX Starship “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” following the separation from its booster and the start of its ascent to space.

The footage of the explosion’s aftermath was shared to social media and Reddit. Many flights were diverted around the debris field or delayed as a result, because some of it was recorded inside planes flying nearby.

The FAA slowed down and diverted planes around the area where space debris was falling.

The 7th test flight of Starship was at worst a partial success, but it was still marked by the second time that the Super Heavy booster was caught by the launch tower. It was the first time in the history of the booster that one of the engines was used from a previous flight.

The launch was a testbed for a redesigned propulsion system, an improved flight computer, and the craft’s heat shield. It’s unclear if any of these were factors in the failure, but SpaceX says that, according to “initial data,” the explosion was potentially the result of a fire that developed in the ship’s rear section.

The company says that “Starship flew within its designated launch corridor” and “any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.” The falling debris put on a show over the Caribbean and was captured by several tourists, who were both amazed and slightly anxious about what they were seeing.

A screenshot shared by the flight tracking website FlightRadar24 to its X account yesterday showed several aircraft in holding patterns or being diverted following the incident, while another showed flight departures from Miami and For Lauderdale airports being delayed by 45 minutes.

SpaceX’s Experimental Spacecraft Missing Flight blasted into the Indian Ocean and it was discovered by an Unidentified Pilot in Puerto Rico

The last time the Starship was lost was during its third test flight. Although it was the first flight where the Starship completed its full-duration ascent burn, SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft shortly before it was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Flights across the Caribbean were hastily diverted on Thursday following the explosion of a rocket built by Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. The chaos was revealed in flight tracking data and audio exchanges between pilots and air traffic control, as reviewed by NPR.

In a statement, the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees both SpaceX and commercial aviation, said there were no reports of injuries or property damage.

“There was a fair amount of disruption,” she says, adding that the disruption was not as big as those created by weather events like blizzards or major thunderstorms.

bystander videos from cruise ships and resorts in the Caribbean show a large explosion in the sky followed by a spray of shooting stars. The debris appeared to pass directly over the Turks and Caicos, startling vacationers.

“Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!” Musk shared a video on his social media platform of debris taken by a user in Turks and Caicos.

It was only at 5:58 p.m., roughly 13 minutes after the spacecraft reportedly exploded — that controllers in Puerto Rico declared a “space vehicle mishap” and closed the airspace around the incident. ATC communications suggested that a large amount of the debris might have fallen into the water.

“I don’t know what it is”, the pilot of Silver Airways flight 127 told the controllers. The pilot was allowed to deviate from his flight path in order to avoid debris. The plane made a safe landing.

In fact, the streaks were the remnants of SpaceX’s experimental Starship spacecraft. There is a flight test taking place on the 7th of July. The launch appeared to go smoothly until SpaceX lost contact around 5:45 p.m. ET. The pilots saw strange lights in the sky.

“Just got a major streak going from at least 60 miles with all these different colors,” one unidentified pilot told air traffic controllers on the ground in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It looked like it was coming towards us, and so we let you know.