By BlueShift and AFP | 2025-05-28

SpaceX's prototype Starship exploded over the Indian Ocean on May 27, capping another bumpy test flight for the rocket CEO Elon Musk hopes will bring humans to Mars.

The biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built lifted off around 6:36 pm from the company's Starbase facility, near a southern Texas village that earlier this month voted to become a city -- also named Starbase.

Excitement ran high among SpaceX engineers and spectators alike, after the last two outings ended with the upper stage disintegrating in fiery cascades that sent debris raining down over Caribbean islands and disrupting flights.

But signs of trouble emerged quickly: the first-stage Super Heavy booster blew up instead of executing its planned splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

A live feed then showed the upper-stage spaceship failing to open its doors to deploy a payload of Starlink satellite "simulators."

Though the ship flew farther than on its two previous attempts, it sprang leaks and began spinning out of control as it coasted through space.

Mission teams vented fuel to reduce the force of the expected explosion, and onboard cameras cut out roughly 45 minutes into what was meant to be a 66-minute flight -- falling short of its target splashdown zone off Australia's west coast.

SpaceX said it was reviewing data following Starship's latest test flight.

"New improvements will be implemented as work begins to prepare the next Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for flight," the company said in a statement. "Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable, but every lesson learned marks progress toward Starship's goal of enabling life to become multiplanetary."

'Highs and lows'

Jared Isaacman, an American commercial astronaut, expressed appreciation for SpaceX's livestream of Starship's launch as well as its uncontrolled reentry.

"Pretty incredible to get this kind of footage from the extreme environment of reentry," he said on X. "Appreciate the transparency -- and bringing us space enthusiasts along through the highs and lows of a test program."

"Some may focus on the lows, but behind the efforts of Starship -- and other programs like New Glenn, Neutron, Vulcan, Terran, Stoke, etc -- is a massive space economy taking shape: tens of thousands of jobs, billions in private investment, all aimed at truly opening the last great frontier."

Musk also focused on the positive and vowed to pick up the pace.

"Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent," he said on X.

"Launch cadence for the next 3 flights will be faster -- approximately 1 every 3 to 4 weeks," he added.

'Fail fast, learn fast'

Starship has now completed nine integrated test flights atop its Super Heavy booster.

Standing 123 meters tall, the black-and-white behemoth is designed to eventually be fully reusable and launch at low cost.

NASA is also counting on a variant of Starship to serve as the crew lander for Artemis 3, the mission to return Americans to the Moon.

According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is shifting personnel and resources to the Starship program in a push to have the vehicle ready for a Mars mission as soon as next year.

SpaceX is betting that its "fail fast, learn fast" ethos, which helped it dominate commercial spaceflight, will once again pay off.

Still, it acknowledged in a statement that progress "won't always come in leaps."

One bright spot: the company has now caught the Super Heavy booster in the launch tower's giant robotic arms three times -- a daring engineering feat it sees as key to rapid reusability and slashing costs.

This ninth flight marked the first time SpaceX reused a Super Heavy booster, though it opted not to attempt a catch -- instead pushing the envelope with a steeper descent angle and one engine intentionally disabled.

The Federation Aviation Administration recently approved an increase in Starship launches from five to 25 annually, stating the expanded schedule would not harm the environment -- a decision that overruled objections from conservation groups concerned about impacts to sea turtles and shorebirds.