SpaceX Starship explodes in space, again raining debris over Caribbean

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft explodes in space, causing FAA to halt air traffic in Florida, marking second failure this year.

SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space on Thursday minutes after lifting off from Texas, causing the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket programme.

Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed.

The failure of the eighth Starship test comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosive failure. The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a programme Musk has sought to speed up this year.

The 123-metre rocket system is central to Musk’s plan to send humans to Mars as soon as the turn of the decade.

The Federal Aviation Administration briefly issued ground stops at the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of “space launch debris.” It said it had opened a mishap investigation into the incident.

The rocket lifted off about 2330 GMT from SpaceX’s sprawling Boca Chica, Texas, rocket facilities. The Super Heavy first stage booster flew back to the earth as planned and was successfully grabbed in midair by a SpaceX crane.

But minutes later, SpaceX’s live stream showed the Starship upper stage spinning in space, while a visualization of the rocket’s engines showed multiple engines shut down. Then the company said it had lost contact with the ship, and announcers immediately drew a connection to the previous flight.