Starship spacecraft explodes in space again

Several videos on social media showed burning debris flying across the twilight sky near south Florida and the Bahamas after the Starship exploded in space. The incident occurred shortly after it began spinning uncontrollably when its engines cut out, a SpaceX livestream of the mission showed.

The incident comes just over a month after SpaceX’s seventh Starship flight also ended in an explosion. The back-to-back failures in the early stages of a mission that SpaceX had previously navigated with ease represent serious setbacks for a program that billionaire Elon Musk has sought to accelerate this year.

The 123-meter rocket system lifted off at around 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time (6:30 a.m. Vietnam Time) from SpaceX's sprawling rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas, as the Super Heavy first-stage booster returned to land as planned.

But minutes later, SpaceX's live stream showed the Starship's upper stage spinning in space, while images of the rocket's engines showed multiple engines shutting down before the company confirmed it had lost contact with the ship.

It is not yet clear whether the explosion was caused by SpaceX's automatic flight termination system, which is activated when something goes wrong on the rocket. The ship had shown signs of damage before the explosion.

The Federal Aviation Administration has issued a ground stop order at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of "space debris" until at least 8 p.m. ET on March 6.

“During the Starship failure, the vehicle experienced an unplanned breakup and lost communications. Our team immediately began coordinating with safety officials to execute pre-planned contingency responses,” SpaceX said in a statement.

The previous incident for Starship in January ended after eight minutes of flight when the rocket exploded in space, showering debris over Caribbean islands and causing minor damage to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.