A SpaceX rocket exploded shortly after launch on Thursday in Texas causing debris to rain from the sky and halting some flights.
This latest incident is the second consecutive explosion of Musk’s rocket and marked the eight mission to test the spacecraft.
As Gript previously reported, in 2023 another of the Musk’s Starships blew up just three minutes after blast-off.
Over 1 million viewers tuned in to see the launch, which was live streamed.
The giant SpaceX Starship, which is the largest rocket ever created, spun out of control shortly after its launch, ultimately exploding in midair.
The rocket’s Super Heavy booster managed to return to the launch pad, where it was caught by SpaceX’s giant mechanical arms.
No injuries or damage have been reported, however images purported to be of fiery pieces of debris were recorded off Caribbean Sea island nations.
SpaceX confirmed that its craft had experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” shortly after its launch.
A statement on X said, “During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”
“We will review the data from today’s flight test to better understand [the] root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.” it said.
Bret Bostwick, who was watching the launch from a catamaran near Ragged Island in the Bahamas told Sky News, “I was watching with my boys, seven and nine years old, and then all of a sudden, you know, boom!”
Bostwick, who is a biotechnology consultant, added, “It just turned into a big ball of fire, actually no noise.
“So there wasn’t actually a boom at that point, but just a big ball of fire.
“And both my kids knew right away it had exploded again. We had seen Starship seven explode.
“So we’re kind of, I guess, little experts down here at detecting the explosion,” he said.
The explosion temporarily grounded flights at Florida airports, while delaying departures from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it issued the notice to aircrafts due to “space launch debris” and said it would require SpaceX to carry out a mishap investigation into the loss of Starship.
In an updated statement, Space X said, “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.