SpaceX Starship Test Flight Ends in Destruction; Booster Recovered

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft was destroyed during its seventh test flight on Thursday, shortly after launching the Super Heavy-Starship mega rocket.

While the first stage booster was successfully recovered at its launchpad, the Starship upper stage failed to reach space and appeared to break apart mid-flight. SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft had been destroyed.

Telemetry signals from Starship ceased eight minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff due to unexpected engine failures.

In a post on X, SpaceX described the incident as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” during the ascent phase. The company stated that it would analyze the flight data to investigate the reason behind the failure.

Photo: SpaceX

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that debris from the destroyed Starship temporarily disrupted air traffic at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, causing some flights to be slowed or redirected. Normal operations were restored shortly after.

The rocket launched from SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas, powered by 33 Raptor engines that generated a total of 16 million pounds of thrust.

The Super Heavy booster successfully returned to Earth, utilizing its engines to guide its descent back to the launch site, where it was captured by mechanical arms—a method SpaceX has practiced previously.

Photo: SpaceX

This flight was intended to test a range of enhancements, including engine restarts in space and the deployment of Starlink prototypes. However, the loss of telemetry made it difficult to identify the cause of the upper stage failure.

In related news, Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, successfully launched a rocket into orbit for the first time.

Nevertheless, a company spokesperson confirmed during the live broadcast, “We lost the booster.”

Blue Origin had planned to recover the booster used for the New Glenn rocket launch by landing it on an ocean platform, but that part of the mission did not go as intended.