SpaceX loses a Starship rocket minutes after taking off from a Texas launchpad

A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launch from Texas on Thursday, forcing airlines bound for the Gulf of Mexico to divert to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk’s rocket program.

SpaceX’s mission controller lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but no crew, eight minutes after liftoff from its South Texas rocket facility at 5:38 pm ET.

Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light swirling in the sky over Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind. “We’ve lost all communication with the ship – that tells us we had a problem with the upper stage,” said SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot, confirming a few minutes later that the ship was missing.

The last time Starship’s upper stage failed was in March of last year, as it was re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but it’s rare for a SpaceX error to cause widespread disruption to spaceflight.

Flights forced to divert

Many commercial flights have been diverted to other airports or diverted to avoid potential debris, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., were also delayed by about 45 minutes, it added.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates private launch operations, said it briefly delayed and diverted planes to the area where space debris was falling, but normal operations have resumed.

The FAA usually closes the airspace for launches and resupply, but it can create a “debris response zone” to prevent the plane from landing if the space vehicle has a problem outside the originally closed area.

SpaceX CEO Musk sent a video to X showing the debris field and said: “Success is not guaranteed, but fun is guaranteed!”

The failure came a day after Blue Origin, the space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.

A longer version of the predecessor

Starship’s upper stage, which is two meters longer than previous versions, was “a new-generation ship with significant improvements,” SpaceX said in a mission statement ahead of the test. It was because it crashed into the Indian Ocean about an hour after it was launched from Texas.

Musk said that initial tests of the failure showed an internal leak of the pressurized oxygen fuel that led to the separation of the rocket.

The FAA is likely to open a misdemeanor investigation that will ground Starship – as the agency has done in the past – and examine whether any debris from a rocket explosion mid-flight fell in populated areas or outside of Starship’s predetermined danger zone.

The disaster threatens to derail Musk’s goal of launching at least 12 Starship tests this year, depending on how quickly SpaceX can implement repairs and whether the FAA opens a misdemeanor investigation.

Musk criticizes the FAA

“There is nothing so far to suggest that the next launch will be next month,” Musk said.

The billionaire, who was appointed to a new position to reduce government spending by the incoming US president, Donald Trump, has repeatedly criticized the FAA for making politically motivated decisions.