“Success is uncertain, but fun is guaranteed!” Musk wrote on X
Starship’s rocket SpaceX of Elon Musk performing a test flight exploded minutes after launchforcing dozens of airline flights in the airspace over the Gulf of Mexico to change course to avoid falling debris.
SpaceX’s mission control team, the company announced on its website, lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship rocket, which was conducting an unmanned satellite test flight, about eight and a half minutes after liftoff from the South Texas rocket facility on 12.38 on Friday morning.
The company added that “a fire broke out in the back part of the boat” — causing the explosion, or a “rapid unplanned disassembly” in SpaceX’s terminology. The debris fell “into the Atlantic Ocean within pre-defined risk areas,” the company noted.
Videos posted on social media show fireballs streaking across the sky over Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving a trail of smoke behind them.
Starship exploding captured on an airplane pic.twitter.com/Y5maQrfmPG
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) January 17, 2025
“We did lose all communications with the craft – that basically tells us we had an anomaly with the upper level,” said SpaceX communications director Dan Huot, confirming minutes after launch that the spacecraft was lost.
The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Muskposted a video on X showing the debris field and writing, “Success is uncertain, but fun is guaranteed!”.
Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed! ✨
pic.twitter.com/nn3PiP8XwG— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2025
The last time SpaceX faced a similar problem with its Starship rocket was in March last year, during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
In another post on X, Musk said that preliminary evidence on the cause of the explosion indicated that “there was an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the vessel’s engine bulkhead, which was large enough to create a pressure greater than the ventilation capacity”.
Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.
Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2025
The Federal Aviation Administration, however, confirmed that it activated one “debris drop zone” after the Starship explosion, which is only done in cases where debris is estimated to fall outside areas already closed to air traffic as part of a space mission, according to CNN.
Dozens of commercial airline flights were diverted to other airports or changed course to avoid possible falling debris, according to the flight tracking website FlightRadar24, and there were also several delays in flight departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Starship exploding captured on an airplane pic.twitter.com/Y5maQrfmPG
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) January 17, 2025
The explosion of the spacecraft is estimated to delay the implementation of Musk’s flagship rocket program.
SpaceX said it plans to work closely with federal authorities to conduct a “thorough investigation” into what went wrong with the Starship spacecraft during today’s test flight. Such an investigation could push back SpaceX’s test flight schedule.
Delays related to FAA investigations into the Starship program have often drawn Musk’s ire. However, on Thursday, the SpaceX chief said in a social media post that, based on “preliminary” estimates, “nothing so far indicates a postponement of the next launch next month.”
