Video: Flight Operations Affected by Debris Over Bahamas Following SpaceX Starship Explosion

The incident occurred just over a month after SpaceX’s seventh Starship flight, which was overseen by Elon Musk, similarly ended in an explosion.

The FAA halted air traffic in sections of Florida on Thursday after SpaceX’s giant Starship spacecraft exploded in space minutes after taking off from Texas. This is the second consecutive failure of Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program this year.

A SpaceX live stream of the flight revealed that Starship split up in space shortly after it started spinning uncontrolled with its engines shut off, causing blazing debris to shoot over the evening skies near south Florida and the Bahamas in a number of social media videos.

Only a little more than a month has passed since the seventh Starship test likewise ended in an explosive catastrophe. The consecutive accidents happened during early mission phases that SpaceX has already comfortably outperformed, which is a setback for a program Musk has been trying to accelerate this year.

A key component of Musk’s strategy to land humans on Mars before the end of the decade is the 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system.

The airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando had brief ground halt by the Federal Aviation Administration due to “space launch debris.” It claimed to have launched an accident investigation into the event.

The rocket took off from SpaceX’s expansive rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at approximately 6:30 p.m. ET (2330 GMT). The Super Heavy first stage booster was successfully captured in flight by a SpaceX crane and returned to Earth as scheduled.

However, a few minutes later, a simulation of the rocket’s engines revealed some engines had shut down, and SpaceX’s live broadcast showed the top stage of the Starship spinning in space. Announcers instantly connected the earlier trip to the company’s statement that it had lost touch with the ship.

During the live broadcast, SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot stated, “Unfortunately, this happened last time too, so we’ve got some practice now.”

Whether SpaceX’s automated flight termination system, which activates when something on the rocket malfunctions, was responsible for the explosion was not immediately apparent. Prior to its explosion, there were indications that the ship was failing.

SpaceX provided a technical description of the malfunction.

“During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost,” SpaceX stated in a statement. “Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”

Eight minutes into its flight, the rocket detonated in January’s Starship disaster, scattering debris across Caribbean islands and slightly damaging a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

According to the FAA, which oversees private rocket launches, SpaceX must look into the reason behind the failure and obtain the agency’s approval before Starship may take off again as part of its study.

While its investigation into SpaceX’s prior Starship failure was still ongoing, the FAA last month authorized the company’s launch license for Thursday’s test flight. The FAA said that before approving Starship’s eighth flight, it had examined SpaceX’s license application and preliminary information from the company’s accident investigation.

In order to simulate a landing sequence that SpaceX hopes to execute on land shortly as a crucial next step in the rocket’s development, Starship was attempting to complete almost a full orbit around the Earth and then return over the Indian Ocean for a splashdown.