Elon Musk's latest SpaceX rocket burst into flames last night during a test flight, causing mayhem as debris flew back to Earth.
The modern space race is heating up, but as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos shoot for the Moon (and Mars in the case of Mr. Musk), it shows that it's still a dangerous game.
While our many trips to the cosmos might be remembered for landmark moments like the Apollo 11 mission and the 1998 launch of the International Space Station, it's just as infamous for catastrophes like the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters.
A lot of modern rockets currently being sent into space are autonomous, meaning the loss of human life has thankfully been avoided since the Soyuz 11 tragedy of 1971. Still, as SpaceX's Artemis III mission plans to put mankind back on the Moon no earlier than 2027, safety concerns are only heightening.
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2025 has gotten off to a rocky start for SpaceX, with the March 6 launch of its eighth Starship test flight ending in failure. This comes after the seventh test flight ended in a similar fiery inferno when it burst into flames just minutes after takeoff in January.
Back then, Musk spoke about the incident saying: "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!"
Now, video footage has captured the moment the March 6 mission went down in flames, with the 400ft SpaceX rocket originally taking off smoothly from Texas' Starbase facility at 5:30 p.m. local time.
The video shows how the Super Heavy booster successfully separated from Starship's upper stage and returned to Earth for a third successful catch. Unfortunately for Starship, it lost power in several engines and then control of its trajectory. The dramatic footage features it spinning toward Earth before cutting to black.
X account @NorcrossUSA shared an eyewitness account from the Bahamas, showing a field of fiery debris raining down. The onlooker says: "I just saw that Starship blow up, there it is." Someone else in the background can be heard mentioning Elon Musk.
There are numerous spectator accounts, and with it being quite the explosion, flights were temporarily grounded. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered a stop to flights from airports like Miami and Orlando until at least 8:00 p.m. local time, with reports of an average 30-minute delay due to "space launch debris." Normal service has since resumed.
January's SpaceX failure led to a similar closure of airports so flights could avoid any potential debris field.
SpaceX's social media account said that the Starship "experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly."
Posting on the official SpaceX site, the company acknowledge the failure but saw it as a learning curve as it explained: "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests."
Let's hope it's third time lucky for Starship launches in 2025.