SpaceX spacecraft explodes during ascent on seventh test flight

The Starship’s seventh test flight ended in an explosion when the vehicle’s upper stage “underwent a rapid and unplanned disassembly during its ascent” over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX chief Elon Musk posted video of the event, with debris crisscrossing and lighting up the sky. During the company’s webcast, Dan Huot of SpaceX’s communications team said he “saw the engines fail telemetry” at the end of the ramp-up and ultimately lost contact with the ship , what the company calls the upper stage of the vehicle. SpaceX said in a tweet that it would continue to review the test data to understand the root cause of the explosion.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued an advisory to pilots after the incident, warning them of falling debris in certain areas. SpaceX said ahead of the test that it was intended to “launch a next-generation ship with significant improvements” and was supposed to conduct Starship’s first payload deployment test using 10 Starlink simulators.

Despite the fire in the upper stage of the Starship, the test was still partially successful. The ship’s Raptor engines started during the build-up before the ground crew lost contact with them about 8 minutes into the flight. SpaceX was also able to recover the Super Heavy booster, catching the vehicle’s first stage with the mechanical arms of its Starbase launch tower.