Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship tumbled out of control after a test launch in Texas on Tuesday evening, and both the first-stage Super Heavy booster and rocket exploded before the craft’s planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Fuel leaks on the unmanned rocket caused it to spin uncontrollably before its planned re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere.
SpaceX confirmed that the rocket broke apart during re-entry, which it again euphemistically termed as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
“Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” SpaceX said in a statement. “Teams will continue to review data and work towards our next flight test.”
The mammoth 400-foot Starship rocket was successfully launched into sub-orbit from its Starbase in Texas at 6.36pm local time, but it was unable to deploy its payload – eight mock Starlink satellites – when the rocket door failed to fully open as the flight went awry about 30 minutes after launch.
“We are in a little bit of a spin. We did spring a leak in some of the fuel tank systems inside of Starship,” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company’s livestream as the flight began to come undone.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement later that the agency was “aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission … and is actively working with SpaceX on the event.” The FAA said there were “no reports of public injury or damage to public property at this time.”
It was the third straight major problem in a Starship launch that SpaceX has repeatedly characterized as a valuable learning experience. Starship rockets also exploded in January and March after about ten minutes into launch on each occasion.
“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review,” Musk said in a post on X after the Starship disintegrated.
He noted: “Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent.”
SpaceX again put a positive spin on the accident.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary,” the company wrote in a post on X.
Tuesday’s mission was the ninth test launch of a Starship rocket.
SpaceX has previously successfully launched Starship into space, and the rocket has splashed down into the ocean as planned. Giant robotic arms have also caught the craft’s rocket booster stage, which is supposed to be reusable, on Starship’s return to Earth.
The latest failure comes amid mounting problems for Musk, the richest human in the world, as President Donald Trump seems to have edged him aside after Musk’s hugely controversial federal contract, service and jobs cuts as part of his Department of Government Efficiency.
