SpaceX’s Starship blows up forward of tenth check flight
One in all SpaceX’s Starship launch automobiles exploded on a check stand in Texas late on Wednesday evening, as the corporate ready for the tenth check flight of the heavy-lift rocket system.
SpaceX mentioned “all personnel are protected and accounted for” in a submit on X, and claimed there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding communities.” The corporate didn’t present a proof for the explosion.
It’s not instantly clear what impression this can have on SpaceX’s improvement of the Starship rocket system. A current advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) urged the tenth check flight may have occurred as quickly as June 29.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mentioned in a submit seemingly associated to the explosion that he considers it to be: “Only a scratch.”
SpaceX has spent the previous few years aggressively growing the 171-foot Starship and the large 232-foot Tremendous Heavy booster that powers it into house. The corporate began 2025 saying this yr could be a “transformational” one for this system, and the FAA lately elevated its restrict on Starship launches in Texas from 5 to 25.
However Starship, particularly, has had various issues this yr. The rocket unexpectedly exploded throughout its seventh check flight in January, after which once more in March. It failed once more throughout its ninth check in Might.
Whereas the rocket made it additional into its most up-to-date flight in Might than through the earlier two assessments, it nonetheless did not deploy the dummy Starlink satellites it was carrying onboard — a vital step within the firm’s plan to make use of the mega-rocket to develop its space-based web service.
Musk has maintained that SpaceX is on monitor to attempt to ship a Starship to Mars in 2026, giving it a “50/50” probability in an organization replace in Might. The corporate can also be growing a bigger “Model 3” of Starship that, Musk claimed, may fly as early as this yr.