Friday, June 20, 2025 - SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded into a fireball during testing in Texas late Wednesday, June 18 marking another setback for Elon Musk’s ambitious plan to send humans to Mars.
The explosion occurred around 11 p.m. local time at the
company’s Starbase facility in Brownsville, Texas, where the rocket was being
prepared for its tenth test flight. SpaceX confirmed the incident in a post on
X (formerly Twitter), describing it as a "major anomaly" and assuring
that all personnel were safe.
Musk later posted that preliminary data pointed to a failure
in a nitrogen storage unit known as a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel
(COPV) located in the payload bay.
“Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the
payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Musk wrote. “If confirmed, this
would be the first failure of its kind for this design.”
Videos circulating on social media showed at least two rapid
explosions lighting up the night sky and scattering debris.
Standing 400 feet (122 meters) tall, the Starship rocket
system is central to Musk’s long-term vision of colonizing Mars. However, the
program has experienced a series of high-profile setbacks this year.
In May, a Starship vehicle lost control mid-flight, failing
to achieve several key testing goals. Though it flew further than during
previous attempts, the rocket eventually spun out of control and failed before
completing its mission.
Back in March, another Starship exploded minutes after
liftoff, prompting the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to
temporarily suspend air traffic in parts of Florida due to falling debris.
Videos from that incident showed fiery fragments streaking across skies over
South Florida and the Bahamas after the spacecraft broke apart midair.
Following that mishap, the FAA concluded its investigation in
early June, attributing the explosion to an engine hardware failure. SpaceX
reportedly implemented eight corrective actions to address the issue before
proceeding with the late May launch.
The Starship program also faced challenges in January, when
another test flight ended in failure. The vehicle disintegrated over the
Caribbean shortly after liftoff, with debris causing minor damage — including
to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Despite repeated setbacks, Musk has continued to express
optimism about Starship’s development, often calling the failures “learning
experiences” essential to building a reliable deep-space transport system.
As of now, SpaceX has not provided further comment on the
latest incident. The FAA is expected to conduct a fresh investigation before
any additional test flights are cleared for launch.
0 Comments