0 comments
Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded on Thursday, minutes after take-off. It marks the second consecutive failure for the tech mogul’s Mars rocket program.
SpaceX has faced its second consecutive mishap, as its Starship spacecraft exploded minutes after lifting off in Texas this week.
The project was an attempt to deploy mock satellites as part of SpaceX’s Mars rocket program, and comes one month after the company’s seventh Starship flight also exploded.
It’s worth noting that these failures have come at relatively preliminary stages of missions that the company has previously surpassed without any issues, suggesting setbacks at the company.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO, has tried to speed up the program this year – clearly with negative results.
The ensuing debris from the explosion could be seen across the Texas night sky, with striking images being shared across social media throughout the last day. SpaceX’s rocket system was 403ft tall, and lifted off at 6.30pm ET from Boca Chica, an expansive facility situated within the state.
Minutes after launching, the Starship’s upper stage began spinning indefinitely in space, before multiple engines shut down and SpaceX confirmed it had lost contact.
Luckily the vessel was not carrying any astronauts and the company quickly halted its livestream of the event after the launch. SpaceX says it is coordinating with safety officials and it would review flight data to better understand the root cause.
During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.
We will review the data from today’s flight test to better…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 7, 2025
Starship was part of a wider initiative by Musk to build rockets capable of sending larger batches of satellites to space, as well as humans to the Moon and Mars.
These failures will not be good news for the tech mogul, who has been running amok in the White House as part of the Trump Administration.
This explosion also comes as reports indicate that the Athena spacecraft by Intuitive Machines has landed on the Moon sideways. However, some good news comes from Blue Ghost, another vessel that did successfully land on the lunar surface earlier this week.
You can watch the incredible footage below.
