Massive SpaceX explosion grounds flights as debris lights up the sky – National

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Massive SpaceX explosion grounds flights as debris lights up the sky – National

Descrease article font size

Increase article font size

SpaceX’s eighth test flight of its Starship rocket ended in a late-stage explosion Thursday night, leaving a barrage of blazing shrapnel visible in the skies that disrupted air traffic.

The explosion marks the second unsuccessful launch for Elon Musk’s space technology company this year, after the same vessel malfunctioned on Jan. 16 due to an unexpected misfiring about eight minutes into the launch.

For its latest test, Starship lifted off at 6:30 p.m. eastern time on Thursday, with no crew on board, from a SpaceX facility in Texas.

The first-stage booster landed safely back at the launch pad shortly after takeoff. Minutes later, the rocket’s engines lost power, sending the vessel into an uncontrollable spin that

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

was caused by “an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship [which] resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines.”

Story continues below advertisement

The rocket reached nearly 150 kilometres in altitude before it ran into trouble. Ground crews lost communication with the vessel about nine-and-a-half minutes after lift-off, SpaceX confirmed.

While the exact location where the rocket came down remains unclear, the company says it launched within a designated corridor to ensure the safety of the public on the ground, at sea and in the air, claiming that any surviving debris would have fallen within a “pre-planned debris response area” and that remnants were non-toxic and would not cause harm to marine or human life.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png">

Get daily National news

Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Flights were temporarily grounded at Orlando International Airport as a result of the explosion.

“Our airport is currently under a Ground Stop due to space launch debris in the area,” the airport wrote on X at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday.

Images of debris re-entering the atmosphere over parts of Florida, the Bahamas and other Caribbean islands quickly began to surface online Thursday night.

Another view from the Bahamas of Space X’s Starship breaking up….

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

— Volcaholic

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up