403-foot SpaceX Starship spun out of control moments after launch from Texas and disintegrated over Indian Ocean.
After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but fell short of the main objectives when the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart.
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off on its ninth demo from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas. Residents voted this month to organize as an official city.
CEO Elon Musk‘s SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or burst apart. “Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test,” the company said in an online statement.
Musk noted in a post on X it was a “big improvement” from the two previous demos, which ended in flaming debris over the Atlantic. Despite the latest setback, he promised a faster launch pace moving forward, with a Starship soaring every three to four weeks for the next three flights.
It was the first time one of Musk’s Starships — intended for moon and Mars travel — flew with a recycled booster. There were no plans to catch the booster with giant chopsticks back at the launch pad, with the company instead pushing it to its limits. Contact with the booster was lost at one point, and it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico in pieces as the spacecraft continued toward the Indian Ocean.
Then the spacecraft went out of control, apparently due to fuel leaks.
“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” said SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot. The company had been looking to test the spacecraft’s heat shield during a controlled reentry.
Communication ceased before the spacecraft came down, and SpaceX ended its webcast soon afterward.
The previous two Starships never made it past the Caribbean. The demos earlier this year ended just minutes after liftoff, raining wreckage into the ocean. No injuries or serious damage were reported, although airline travel was disrupted. The Federal Aviation Administration last week cleared Starship for another flight, expanding the hazard area and pushing the liftoff outside peak air travel times.
Besides taking corrective action and making upgrades, SpaceX modified the latest spacecraft’s thermal tiles and installed special catch fittings. This one was meant to sink in the Indian Ocean, but the company wanted to test the add-ons for capturing future versions back at the pad, just like the boosters.
NASA needs SpaceX to make major strides over the next year with Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — in order to land astronauts back on the moon. Next year’s moonshot with four astronauts will fly around the moon, but will not land. That will happen in 2027 at the earliest and require a Starship to get two astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back off again.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
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5 comments
Michael K
May 28, 2025 at 11:19 am
NASA gave us some of the greatest technological advances of the last century – and made the US a global leader in innovation. Outsourcing and privatizing research and development to a profit-driven entity at enormous taxpayer expense is looking like a big mistake.
Foghorn Leghorn
May 28, 2025 at 11:54 am
How soon we forget that Elon had a rocket that rescued those stranded astronauts at the space station.
KathrynA
May 28, 2025 at 1:25 pm
But how do we forget all these explosions at great cost to the US where people are losing health care and basic food? I’m for innovation and exploration, but which is more important: lives and health of our people or more exploding, failing rockets, which cost billions, but probably bri more wealth to Musk. Too bad he doesn’t think like the Gates and use his great wealth to help struggling people in the US and elsewhere in the world!
Victoria Olson
May 28, 2025 at 6:44 pm
This is Elon’s Musk’s KARMA…..
Michael K
May 28, 2025 at 10:27 pm
Poor Elon doesn’t understand how government works and what public service means. He sure did Hoover up some $2.8 billion for his company though – and access to your private data.
Good riddance.