One in all SpaceX’s Starship rockets exploded on a take a look at stand in Texas late on Wednesday night time, as the corporate ready for the tenth take a look at flight of the heavy-lift rocket system.
SpaceX mentioned “all personnel are secure and accounted for” in a put up on X, and claimed there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding communities.” The corporate mentioned in a later replace on Thursday that an preliminary evaluation suggests the explosion was brought on by a failure of of a “pressurized tank referred to as a COPV, or composite overwrapped strain vessel” within the Starship’s nosecone.
The big explosion triggered injury to the realm surrounding the take a look at stand, in accordance with SpaceX. However the firm mentioned there are not any reported accidents. SpaceX was getting ready to carry out a “static fireplace” of the Starship’s six Raptor engines, and so the realm across the rocket had been cleared previous to the explosion.
It’s not instantly clear what impression it will have on SpaceX’s improvement of the Starship rocket system. A latest advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended the tenth take a look at flight might have occurred as quickly as June 29. That can most certainly be delayed as the corporate works by what went flawed on Wednesday night time.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk mentioned in a put up seemingly associated to the explosion that he considers it to be: “Only a scratch.”
SpaceX has spent the previous couple of years aggressively creating the 171-foot Starship and the large 232-foot Tremendous Heavy booster that powers it into house. The corporate began 2025 saying this yr can be a “transformational” one for this system, and the FAA not too long ago elevated its restrict on Starship launches in Texas from 5 to 25.
However Starship, specifically, has had numerous issues this yr. The rocket unexpectedly exploded throughout its seventh take a look at flight in January, after which once more in March. It failed once more throughout its ninth take a look at in Could.
Whereas the rocket made it additional into its most up-to-date flight in Could than in the course of the earlier two checks, it nonetheless didn’t deploy the dummy Starlink satellites it was carrying onboard — an important 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 observe to attempt to ship a Starship to Mars in 2026, giving it a “50/50” probability in an organization replace in Could. The corporate can also be creating a bigger “Model 3” of Starship that, Musk claimed, might fly as early as this yr.
This story has been up to date with new info from SpaceX about what it believes to be the reason for the explosion.
