SpaceX Starship Test Flight 7 Explodes: What Went Wrong with Elon Musk’s Rocket?

SpaceX Starship Test Flight 7 Explodes: A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded just minutes into its seventh test flight, after launching from Texas on Thursday an unexpected setback after the Elon Musk-led company had made steady progress advancing the vehicle’s capabilities.

A SpaceX Starship forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico alter to course to avoid falling debris. It was also a setback to Elon Musk's flagship rocket programme.

Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind.

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"We did lose all communications with the ship - that is essentially telling us we had an anomaly with the upper stage," SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot said, confirming minutes later that the ship was lost.

The last time a Starship upper stage failed was in March last year, as it was reentering Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX mishap caused widespread disruptions to air traffic.

Dozens of commercial flights diverted to other airports or altered course to avoid potential debris, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were also delayed by about 45 minutes, it added.

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The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates private launch activities, said it had briefly slowed and diverted planes around the area where space debris was falling, but normal operations had since resumed.

The FAA regularly closes airspace for space launches and reentries, but it can create a “debris response area” to prevent aircraft from entering if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly outside the originally closed zone.

SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video on X showing the debris field and said: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”

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

"This new year will be transformational for Starship," SpaceX said on its website, "with the goal of bringing reuse of the entire system online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate towards being able to send humans and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, and Mars."

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