By Stephanie Dwilson | 2025-03-24

The explosion in space of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft earlier this month raises some concerns about the future of the Mars program, although it has not slowed the company's ambitious plans to make humanity multiplanetary.

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket (referred to collectively as the Starship) are the keys to SpaceX's mission of sending people to Mars and beyond.

The Starship rocket lifted off March 6 at 6.30pm from Boca Chica, Texas. The first stage booster returned to Earth. But the Starship's upper stage began spinning uncontrollably and broke apart in space. Livestream video showed fiery debris streaking across the skies over Florida and the Bahamas.

It was SpaceX's second Starship failure this year.

Shortly after the explosion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X: "Rockets are hard."

About a week later, Musk said the Starship rocket would leave for Mars at the end of 2026 with Tesla humanoid robot Optimus onboard.

"If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely," Musk said March 15 on X.

Standing 123 meters tall, Starship is designed to eventually be fully reusable.

NASA is awaiting a modified version of Starship as a lunar lander for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon this decade.

But before SpaceX may carry out those missions, it must prove the vehicle is reliable, safe for crew and capable of complex in-orbit refueling -- critical for deep space missions.

Safety concerns

Each test flight -- and failure -- provides invaluable data to SpaceX engineers, who use the information to refine designs and address technical concerns. These mishaps are part of the inherent challenges that come with such an ambitious program.

Still, the failures have brought concerns about environmental and logistical impacts.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued ground stops on March 6 at major Florida airports due to concerns about falling debris. This act disrupted about 240 flights, resulting in an average 28-minute delay.

In addition, the debris fallout could raise concerns about public safety and environmental impacts. However, the FAA's environmental assessments have previously looked into potential adverse effects in Texas, including from launch anomalies, and found them to be minimal.

Still, these mishaps have raised concerns about SpaceX's plan to begin hosting Starship launches in Florida in addition to Texas.

SpaceX's Christopher Gebhardt said the company was on track to start launches from Florida by the end of 2025.

"We plan to complete the Starship launch pad at Pad 39A later this year, and pending the completion of the environmental reviews, SpaceX intends to conduct the first Starship launch from Florida Pad 39A later this year," he said on a webcast March 3, according to newspaper Florida Today

Space business consultant Laura Forczyk cautioned about rushing the move.

"We should be expecting that Starship will launch out of Cape Canaveral when it is safe enough to do so, when the FAA and the range at Cape Canaveral say it is safe for Starship to fly," she told the newspaper.

"The worry is that if a rocket the size of Starship were to have an incident near or on the pad, it would disrupt the entire operations of Cape Canaveral, which is the busiest spaceport in the world."

Others, however, disagree that these recent events should impact SpaceX's move to Florida at all.

"To the contrary, it makes Florida more attractive -- as the launch path from the Cape is clear of population all the way to Africa," Greg Autry, associate provost for space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida, said in an email to Florida Today.

A SpaceX-NASA win

While the recent Starship launch failure was highly publicized, SpaceX celebrated a major win less than two weeks later with a different spacecraft.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on March 17, beginning its 17-hour return to Earth, carrying two NASA astronauts that had been "stranded" at the ISS for over nine months.

The spaceship carrying Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams -- alongside fellow American Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov -- streaked through the atmosphere before deploying parachutes for a gentle splashdown off the Florida coast on March 18.

Ground teams erupted in cheers as the gumdrop-shaped spacecraft named Freedom bobbed steadily on the waves beneath a clear, sunny sky.

"What a ride -- I see a capsule full of grins," said Hague.

Wilmore and Williams, both ex-Navy pilots and veterans of two prior space missions, flew to the orbital lab in June last year on what was supposed to be a days-long round trip to test out Boeing's Starliner on its first crewed flight.

However, propulsion issues rendered the spacecraft unfit for their return, forcing it to return empty.